THE    FRONTIER   OF 
CONTROL 

A  Study  in  British  Workshop  Politics 

BY 

CARTER  L.  GOODRICH 


WITH  A  FOREWORD  BY 
R.   H.  TAWNEY 

FELLOW    OF   BALLIOI.    COI.LEOE,    OXFORD;    LATE    MEMBEa    OF   THE 
COAL    INDUSTRY    COMMISSION 


m 


NEW  YORK 

HARCOURT,   BRACE   AND   HOWE 

1920 


COPYRIGHT,    1920,   BY 
HARCOURT,   BRACK  AND  HOWE,   nSTC. 


THC    QUINN    AND    BODEN    COMPANY 
HAHWAY,    N,    J 


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

Fob  the  fun  I  have  had  in  doing  this  job,  my 
two  heaviest  obligations  are  to  Amherst  College — 
for  sending  me  to  England  to  study — and  to  Mr. 
Henry  Clay — for  directing  my  work  here. 

The  trip  was  made  possible  by  the  award  of 
the  Boswell  Dwight  Hitchcock  Fellowship  to 
which  the  Trustees  of  Amherst  College  voted  a 
special  addition.  My  personal  debts  to  the  college 
and  to  the  men  working  with  President  Meikle- 
john  there  are  too  many  and  too  great  to  mention 
here.  It  is  Professor  Walton  H.  Hamilton,  how- 
ever, to  whose  teaching  I  owe  my  start  in  labor 
problems  and  to  whose  planning  I  owe  this  special 
opportunity. 

To  Mr.  Henry  Clay,  late  of  the  Ministry  of 
Labour  and  now  Fellow  of  New  College,  Oxford, 
I  am  indebted  both  for  suggesting  a  job  that 
** wanted  doing"  and  for  giving  me  almost  day- 
to-day  counsel  and  guidance  in  the  doing  of  it. 
Without  the  many  kindnesses  of  Mr.  Clay  and  his 
friends,  I  could  hardly  have  begun  to  find  my  way 
about  in  an  investigation  of  the  current  British 
situation. 

Mr.  G.  D.  H.  Cole  and  his  associates  of  the 
Labour  Research  Department  were  good  enough 

iii 


iv  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

to  give  me  access  to  their  useful  collection  of 
trade  union  journals,  constitutions,  rules,  etc.  and 
to  help  me  in  other  ways.  Mr.  R.  H.  Tawney, 
Mr.  Arthur  Grleason  and  Mr.  Eobert  W.  Bruere 
have  very  kindly  read  my  manuscript  and  made 
valuable  suggestions. 

Finally  I  feel  warmly  grateful  to  a  large  number 
of  people  in  various  parts  of  Great  Britain — 
employers  and  workers,  managers,  foremen,  trade 
union  secretaries,  tutorial  movement  students  and 
tutors,  government  officials  and  ''rebel"  shop 
stewards — for  the  readiness  and  courtesy  with 
which  they  have  taken  time  from  their  immediate 
and  practical  concerns  with  industry  to  answer 
the  questions  of  an  outsider  and  an  American. 

C.  L,   G. 

LONDOK, 

December  1,  1919. 


CONTENTS 

PAOB 

Acknowledgments iii 

Foreword  by  K.  H.  Tawney vii 

Introduction:  The  Demand  for  Control    ,       .  3 
The  Extent  of  Control  : 

SECTION 

I— Control •      .       .       51 

II— The  Frontier  of  Control  ....       56 

III — Employment 63 

IV — Unemployment 72 

V— ''The  Right  to  a  Trade"  .       ...       92 
VI— "TheRigJitto  Sack"      ....     104 

VII— Promotion Ill 

VIII— The  Choice  of  Foremen    .       .       .       .117 

IX — The  Organization  of  Foremen        .       .     126 

X — The  Standard  of  Foremanship       .       .135 

XI — Special  Managerial  Functions        .       .     146 

XII— Methods  of  Payment        ....     161 

XIII — Technique:  Restriction  and  Restrictions    176 

XIV — Technique :  Consultation  over  Changes .     186 

XV — Technique :  Insistence  on  Improvements    202 

XVI — Technique:  Suggestions  and  Inventions    217 

XVII— Trade  Policy:  Joint  Action     .       .       .223 

XVIII— Trade  Policy:  Workers' Demands  .       .     241 

XIX— The  Extent  of  Control    .       .       .       .253 

Note  on  Sources 267 

Index 273 


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FOREWORD 

By  R.  H.  Tawney 

It  is  a  commonplace  that  during  the  past  six 
years  the  discussion  of  industrial  and  social  prob-' 
lems  has  shifted  its  center.  Prior  to  the  war 
students  and  reformers  were  principally  occupied 
with  questions  of  poverty.  To-day  their  main  in- 
terest appears  to  be  the  government  of  industry. 
An  increasing  number  of  trade  unionists  regard 
poverty  as  a  symptom  of  a  more  deeply  rooted 
malady  which  they  would  describe  as  industrial 
autocracy  and  demand  ''control."  Anxious  to 
establish  some  modus  vivendi  which  may  promise 
industrial  peace,  employers  consider  the  conces- 
sion of  a  workshop  committee  or  an  industrial 
council.  The  Government  gives  the  movement  its 
official  blessing  and  has  taken  steps  through  the 
Ministry  of  Labor  to  propagate  the  proposals  of 
Mr.  Whitley's  Committee.  That  **  control" 
should  stand  to  different  sections  of  opinion  for 
quite  different  types  of  industrial  structure  was 
only  to  be  expected.  But  the  necessity  of  meeting 
some  demand  for  which  that  is  now  the  accepted 
name  is  generally  admitted.  The  formulation  of 
a  ''Constitution  for  Industry"  is  conducted  with 
something  of  the  same  energy  as  that  which  past 

vii 


viii  FOREWORD 

generations  have  given  to  the  discussion  of  a  Con- 
stitution for  the  State. 

The  change  of  angle  is  interesting.  No  doubt 
it  is  all  to  the  good  that  the  task  of  reorganizing 
industry  should  be  recognized  for  what  it  is — a 
particular  case  of  the  general  problem  of  consti- 
tutional government.  But  if  it  has  been  useful  to 
show  that  recent  industrial  movements  have 
''self-government"  as  their  genus,  it  is  no  less  im- 
portant now  to  be  clear  as  to  their  species.  The 
formulation  of  programs  of  ''joint  control,"  such 
as — to  give  only  one  example — that  advanced  by 
the  Miners'  Federation,  the  demand  for  "indus- 
trial democracy,"  the  analogies  drawn  between 
representative  institutions  in  industry  and  in  poli- 
tics— these  things  have  been  invaluable  in 
broadening  horizons  and  in  opening  windows 
through  which  new  ideas  could  pass.  But  the 
emphasis  needed  to  compel  attention  to  the  sig- 
nificance of  a  point  of  view  which  till  recently  was 
unfamiliar  has  by  now,  it  may  be  suggested,  done 
its  work.  The  new  field  for  investigation  and 
practice  has  been  mapped  out.  What  is  needed 
to-day  is  to  give  precision  to  its  content  and  to 
test  general  propositions  in  the  light  of  particular 
facts.  "Control"  is  the  most  ambiguous  and 
least  self-explanatory  of  formulae.  The  aspira- 
tions behind  it  may  be  genuine  enough.  But  un- 
less it  is  to  remain  a  mere  aspiration,  it  must  be 


FOREWORD  ix 

related  much  more  closely  than  has  been  done 
hitherto  to  the  actual  conditions  of  industrial  or- 
ganization and  to  the  realities  of  human  psy- 
chology. We  must  know  how  much  control  is 
wanted,  and  control  over  what,  and  through  whom 
it  is  to  be  exercised.  We  must  decide  whether 
the  demand  is  the  passing  result  of  abnormal  eco- 
nomic conditions,  produced  by  the  war  and  seized 
upon  by  theorists  as  a  basis  for  premature  gen- 
eralizations, or  whether  it  represents  a  move- 
ment which  is  so  fundamental  and  permanent  that 
any  future  scheme  of  industrial  relationships,  un- 
less it  is  to  be  built  upon  sand,  must  take  account 
of  it. 

The  first  condition  of  answering  these  questions 
is  an  impartial  survey  of  the  actual  facts  as  they 
exist  to-day.  Mr.  Carter  Goodrich's  book  supplies 
it.  He  is  concerned  not  with  theory,  but  with 
practice.  His  object  is  not  to  propound  any  doc- 
trine, to  suggest  any  reforms  or  to  formulate  a 
judgment  as  to  the  merits  or  demerits  of  any  fea- 
tures in  the  industrial  system.  It  is  simply  to 
offer  the  materials  without  the  possession  of 
which  these  exercises,  however  exhilarating,  are 
apt  to  be  sterile.  He  has  set  himself  the  question : 
— "How  much  control  over  industry  do  the  rank 
and  file  of  those  who  work  in  it,  and  their  organi- 
zations, in  fact  exercise?'*  He  answers  it  by  an 
analysis  of  industrial  relationships,  of  the  rules 


X  FOREWORD 

enforced  by  trade  unions  and  employers '  associa- 
tions, of  the  varying  conditions  which  together 
constitute  ''the  custom  of  the  trade"  in  each  par- 
ticular industry,  and  of  the  changes  in  all  of  these 
which  took  place  during  the  war. 

Such  a  study  of  ''The  Frontier  of  Control"  is 
indispensable  to  the  formation  of  any  reasonable 
judgment  upon  the  larger  issues  which  the  phrase 
suggests.  Mr.  G-oodrich  is  well  qualified  to  pro- 
vide it.  He  has  made  a  careful  investigation  of 
such  aspects  of  British  industrial  organization  as 
are  relevant  to  his  subject.  Residence  in  Great 
Britain  has  familiarized  him  with  the  atmosphere 
in  which  its  industrial  politics  are  carried  on.  He 
has  mixed  with  members  of  Whitley  Councils  and 
Boards  of  Control,  Trade  Boards  and  Royal  Com- 
missions, trade  unions  and  employers'  associa- 
tions. He  knows  what  men  of  business  like  Mr. 
Foster  and  Mr.  Malcolm  Sparkes  hope  for  the 
building  industries  and  the  views  on  mining  of 
leading  members  of  the  Miners'  Federation.  To 
the  economic  perplexities  and  agitations  of  a 
foreign  country  he  brings  the  wide  background 
of  a  student  of  economics  and  a  dash  of  charming 
skepticism  which  to  one  heated  by  the  somewhat 
feverish  temperature  of  British  industry  during 
the  last  two  years,  is  as  refreshing  as  the  ice  at 
the  close  of  an  American  dinner. 

Mr.    Goodrich    has     shown    admirable     self- 


FOREWORD  xi 

restraint  in  allowing  the  facts  to  speak  for  them- 
selves, and  in  resisting  the  temptation  to  enlarge 
upon  their  moral.  With  regard  to  certain  broad 
questions,  however,  his  book  encourages  the 
reader  to  attempt  the  generalizations  which  the 
author  withholds.  It  suggests,  in  the  first  place, 
that  the  sharp  division  ordinarily  drawn  between 
the  sphere  of  "management"  and  that  of  ** labor'* 
is  an  abstraction  which  does  less  than  justice  to 
the  complexity  of  the  facts.  If  it  is  broadly  true 
that  in  modern  industry  the  function  of  the  former 
is  direction  and  of  the  latter  the  execution  of 
orders  transmitted  to  it,  the  line  between  them, 
nevertheless,  fluctuates  widely  from  industry  to  in- 
dustry. It  varies,  for  one  thing,  quite  irrespective 
of  any  deliberate  effort  on  the  part  of  the  workers 
to  move  it,  with  the  nature  of  the  work  which  is 
being  carried  on.  There  are  certain  occupations 
in  which  an  absolute  separation  between  the  plan- 
ning and  the  performance  of  work  is,  for  technical 
reasons,  impracticable.  A  group  of  miners  who 
are  cutting  and  filling  coal  are  "working"  hard 
enough.  But  very  little  coal  will  be  cut,  and  the 
risks  of  their  trade  wiU.  be  enormously  increased, 
unless  they  display  some  of  the  qualities  of  scien- 
tific knowledge,  prevision  and  initiative  which  are 
usually  associated  with  the  word  "management." 
What  is  true  of  miners  is  true,  in  diiferent  de- 
grees, of  men  oa  a  building  job  or  in  the  trans- 


xil  FOREWORD 

port  trades.  They  must  exercise  considerable 
discretion  in  their  work  because,  unless  they  do, 
the  work  does  not  get  done,  and  no  amount  of 
supervision  can  compensate  for  the  absence  of  it. 
It  is  not,  it  may  be  suggestedj  a  mere  chance  that 
workers  in  these  industries  should  have  taken  the 
initiative  in  the  movement  for  ''control."  They 
demand  more  of  it,  because  the  very  nature  of 
their  work  compels  them  to  exercise  something  of 
it  already. 

In  industries  such  as  these  the  character  of  the 
work  pushes  the  frontier  of  the  workmen's  con- 
trol further  into  the  employer's  territory  than  is 
the  case  in — say — a  cotton  mill  or  a  locomotive 
shop.  But  the  degree  to  which  workers  exercise 
in  some  industries  functions  and  powers  reserved 
in  others  for  the  management  does  not  depend 
merely  upon  economic  conditions.  It  is  also,  of 
course,  the  result  of  conscious  effort,  which  is  not 
the  less  significant  because  till  recently  it  took  the 
form  of  specific  claims  to  be  consulted  upon  par- 
ticular matters  incidental  to  the  wage  contract  and 
was  not  related  to  any  general  social  philosophy. 
The  organization  of  sufficient  power  to  assert 
those  claims  effectively  is  the  history  of  trade 
unionism.  Of  its  result  in  establishing  or  failing 
to  establish  them,  Mr.  Goodrich's  book  is  the  best 
account  known  to  me.  The  reader  can  judge  from 
it  how  much  "control"  had  in  practice  been  se- 


FOREWORD  xiii 

cured  by  workmen  up  to  1919.  If  he  compares  tlie 
position  with  that  which  obtained  fifty  years  ago 
he  will  see  that  long  before  the  movement  for 
*' self-government  in  industry"  had  become  ex- 
plicit, the  line  between  ''management"  and 
'  *  labor"  had  been,  in  fact,  redrawn.  On  one  point, 
apprenticeship  and  the  entry  to  a  trade,  the  ef- 
fective power  of  the  workers  appears  for  obvious 
reasons  to  have  diminished.  On  all  the  rest  it  has 
enormously  increased.  As  Mr.  Groodrich's  survey 
shows,  the  intensive  development  of  trade  union- 
ism has  been  even  more  remarkable  than  its  ex- 
tensive growth  in  membership.  On  the  whole 
group  of  questions,  in  particular,  suggested  by 
the  word  ''discipline,"  it  is  every  year  more  and 
more  succeeding  in  the  establishment  of  the  same 
claims  as  it  made  effective  thirty  years  ago  with 
regard  to  wages  and  hours. 

In  the  light  of  the  facts  presented  by  Mr.  Good- 
rich it  is  a  question  whether  the  conventional 
description  of  industrial  organization  given  in 
most  economic  text-books  does  not  require  a  some- 
what radical  revision.  The  picture  of  "the  em- 
ployer" achieving  economic  progress  by  "substi- 
tuting" one  "factor  of  production"  for  another 
may  have  been  adequate  to  the  early  days  of  the 
factory  system.  What  the  present  study  brings 
out  is  the  vital  importance  at  every  point  of  a 
condition  which  is  apt  to  be  lightly  touched  upon 


xiv  FOREWORD 

or  omitted  altogether,  tlie  condition  of  corporate 
consent  on  the  part  of  the  workers.  How  vital 
that  condition  is  is  one  of  the  discoveries  of 
the  past  five  years.  It  was  emphasized  first 
by  the  events  of  the  war,  which  revealed 
how  little  reality  there  was  in  the  common  as- 
sumption that  the  settlement  of  the  larger  ques- 
tions of  industrial  organization  was  a  matter  for 
the  employer  and  the  employer  alone.  It  became 
necessary  to  reorganize  industry  for  the  purpose 
of  increasing  production  or  of  economizing  mate- 
rials. The  condition  of  carrying  out  the  reorgani- 
zation effectively  was  the  consent  of  all  engaged 
in  the  industry.  Consent  could  be  obtained  only 
by  a  formal  recognition  of  the  fact  that  the  rep- 
resentative of  the  workers  had  a  right  to  be  con- 
sulted with  regard  to  questions  of  policy  and 
management,  because  they  possessed  de  facto  the 
power  to  frustrate  the  required  changes  or  to 
make  them  effective.  Hence,  as  Mr.  Goodrich 
points  out,  the  creation  of  representative  organs, 
such  as  the  Textile  Control  Boards,  through 
which  the  views  of  the  workers  on  these  matters 
could  be  expressed.  When,  as  in  the  textile 
trades,  that  representative  machinery  worked 
effectively,  the  emergency  was  met  with  compara- 
tively little  difficulty.  When,  as  in  the  engineer- 
ing trades,  the  policy  pursued  was  to  force  drastic 
innovations  upon  workers  who  were  not  consulted 


FOREWORD  XV 

with  regard  to  them,  the  result  was  endless  fric- 
tion. The  moral  suggested  by  the  situation  since 
the  armistice  in  the  building  and  coal-mining  in- 
dustries— to  mention  no  others — and  emphasized 
by  Mr.  Foster's  Committee,  by  Mr.  Justice 
Sankey,  and  by  the  report  on  dock  labor  of  Lord 
Shaw's  Court  of  Inquiry,  is  the  same.  It  is 
that,  as  matters  now  stand,  the  first  condition 
of  economic  progress  is  such  a  change  in  the  posi- 
tion of  the  workers  as  will  throw  on  to  the  side 
of  increased  efficiency  the  public  opinion  which  is 
at  present  skeptical  both  of  the  objects  for  which 
it  is  urged  and  of  the  methods  by  which  it  is 
sought  to  attain  it. 

The  truth  is  that,  with  the  pushing  forward  of 
the  ''frontier"  through  the  process  described  by 
Mr.  Goodrich,  the  conditions  of  industrial  effi- 
ciency have  changed.  In  no  very  remote  past  disci- 
pline could  be  imposed  upon  workers  from  above, 
under  pain  of  dismissal,  which  meant  in  the  last 
resort,  however  hateful  it  may  be  to  confess  it, 
by  an  appeal  to  hunger  and  fear.  "Members  of 
this  Court,"  states  Lord  Shaw's  report,  ''can  re- 
call a  period  when  men,  gathered  at  the  dock  gates, 
fought  fiercely  for  a  tally  which,  when  obtained, 
might  only  enable  them  to  obtain  one  hour's  work, 
and  so  limit  their  earnings  for  the  day  to  4d." 
Workmen  were  conscious  of  individual  grievances, 
but  they  had  not  formulated  an  interpretation  of 


xvi  FOREWORD 

their  position  in  general  terms,  and  the  willing- 
ness of  the  personnel  of  industry  to  co-operate  in 
production  without  raising  fundamental  questions 
as  to  its  constitution  and  government  could  be 
taken  for  granted.  To-day  that  assumption  is 
possible  only  to  the  very  short-sighted.  As  the 
present  study  shows,  the  effect  of  the  piecemeal 
advances  made  by  trade  unionism  has  been  to 
effect,  in  the  aggregate,  a  radical  redistribution 
of  authority  between  the  parties  engaged  in  in- 
dustry, which  results,  in  extreme  cases,  in  some- 
thing like  a  balance  of  power.  To  discuss  how 
that  situation  is  to  be  resolved,  whether  by  a 
frontal  attack  on  trade  unionism,  such  as  appears 
to  be  favored  by  the  more  naive  and  irresponsi- 
ble section  of  opinion  in  the  United  States,  or 
by  giving  it  a  vested  interest  in  the  con- 
tinuance of  profit-making  through  schemes  of 
profit-sharing  and  representation  on  directorates, 
or  by  a  partnership  between  a  trade  unionism 
undertaking  responsibility  for  the  maintenance  of 
professional  standards  and  the  consumer  for  whom 
industry  is  carried  on,  does  not  fall  within  the 
scope  of  Mr.  Goodrich's  book.  But  a  reasonable 
consideration  of  these  large  and  burning  issues 
will  be  materially  assisted  by  the  clearness  and 
impartiality  with  which  he  has  set  forth  the  pre- 
cise facts  of  the  existing  situation. 

R.  H.  Tawney. 


THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 


INTRODUCTION 

THE  DEMAND  FOR  CONTROL 

''In  the  past  workmen  have  thought  that  if  they 
could  secure  higher  wages  and  better  conditions 
they  would  be  content.  Employers  have  thought 
that  if  they  granted  these  things  the  workers 
ought  to  be  contented.  Wages  and  conditions 
have  been  improved;  but  the  discontent  and  the 
unrest  have  not  disappeared. ' '  So  far  the  quota- 
tion might  be  from  almost  any  American  business 
man.  But  the  place  was  the  King's  Robing  Room 
of  the  British  House  of  Lords,  and  the  speaker  was 
a  veteran  trade  union  leader,  Mr.  William  Straker, 
presenting  the  case  of  the  Miners'  Federation 
before  the  Coal  Commission  which  was  sitting  in 
judgment  on  Great  Britain's  key  industry.  Mr. 
Straker  went  on: — **Many  good  people  have  come 
to  the  conclusion  that  working  people  are  so  un- 
reasonable that  it  is  useless  trying  to  satisfy 
them.  The  fact  is  that  the  unrest  is  deeper  than 
pounds,  shillings  and  pence,  necessary  as  they 
are.  The  root  of  the  matter  is  the  straining  of 
the  spirit  of  man  to  be  free." 

In  the  name   of   this    ** deeper"  unrest,    the 
Miners '  Federation  was  demanding  a  bold  scheme 

8 


4  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

of  workers'  control.  And  the  "deeper"  unrest 
itself — or  at  least  the  unrest  which  is  concerned 
more  with  discipline  and  management  than  with 
wages — is  often  spoken  of  as  the  demand  for  con- 
trol. The  main  business  of  this  book  is  to  discuss 
the  facts  of  the  present  extent  of  workers '  control 
in  British  industry;  the  purpose  of  the  introduc- 
tion is  to  indicate  the  significant  setting  of  these 
facts  in  the  human  terms  of  the  demand  for  con- 
trol. Control  is  important  only  because  people 
want  it. 

But  how  many  workers  do  want  control,  and 
how  much  control  do  they  want?  No  answer  can 
pretend  to  be  definite.  Control  is  a  slogan  in 
several  vigorous  propagandist  programs.  Con- 
trol has  more  than  once  been  a  definite  issue  both 
in  the  active  conflicts  and  the  formulated  policies 
of  the  labor  movement.  But  even  for  this  con- 
scions  and  organized  demand,  no  accurate  count 
of  heads  can  be  made.  And  for  the  much  more 
significant  estimate  of  the  underlying  demand  for 
control — the  desires  of  individual  workers  for 
the  simpler  things  that  are  grouped  as  control, 
and  the  restlessnesses  for  which  the  word  control 
is  an  attempted  rationalization — it  is  possible  only 
to  offer  a  few  clues  for  further  study. 

Control  is  the  central  idea  of  various  propa- 
gandist isms.  The  Syndicalist  cry  of  1911 — 
"The  Mines  for  the  Miners" — has  died  out,  but 


THE  DEMAND  FOR  CONTROL  5 

the  idea  of  workers'  control  remains.  ** Complete 
control  of  industry  by  the  working-class  organiza- 
tions," is  the  slogan  of  the  Marxian  Industrial 
Unionists/  Control  of  industry  by  guilds  of  pro- 
ducers co-operating  with  a  democratized  state 
representing  the  people  as  consumers,  is  the 
subtler  syndicalism  ^  of  the  Guild  Socialists.  And 
the  cries  of  '^complete  control"  and  ''encroaching 
control"  of  these  groups  of  theorists  are  echoed 
more  and  more  faintly  through  various  grades  of 
opinion  to  the  "share  in  control"  and  ''voice 
in  control"  ^  offered  in  the  Whitley  Councils.  The 
thoroughgoing  disciples  of  either  of  the  two  com- 
plete gospels  of  control — Marxian  Industrial 
Unionism  and  Guild  Socialism — are  a  tiny 
minority.  The  Socialist  Labor  Party,  the  chief 
organization  of  the  former,  has  about  two 
thousand  members,  but  this  number  included  the 
ablest  of  the  leaders  of  the  shop  stewards '  move- 
ment, and  the  movement  served  as  a  channel  for 
the  doctrine.  The  Centfal  Labor  College,  which 
"promises  to  be  candid  but  not  impartial"  and 
preaches  an  uncompromising  revolutionary 
orthodoxy,  reaches  through  its  correspondence 
and  other  courses  perhaps  ten  thousand  students  a 
year — chiefly  among  the  members  of  the  National 

*  G.  D.  H.  Cole,  An  Introduction  to  Trade  Unionism,  pp.  97,  98. 

*  Cf.  the  footnote  on  p.  37  of  Cole's  Self-Oovernment  in  Industry. 

*  The  corresponding  Americanisms  are  "  management-sharing " 
and  "  voice  in  management." 


6  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

Union  of  Railwaymen  and  the  South  Wales 
Miners'  Federation.  The  Guild  Socialists,  too, 
are  insignificant  in  enrolled  members.  The  Na- 
tional Guilds  League,  their  propagandist  body,  has 
less  than  a  thousand  members.  This  figure  is, 
however,  little  indication  of  the  actual  number 
who  accept  more  or  less  fully  the  guild  idea  and 
little  indication  of  the  actual  influence  of  this  small 
group — composed  as  it  is  largely  of  able  and  pro- 
lific writers  and  of  the  younger  trade  union 
officials.  The  working-class  circulation  of  Mr. 
Cole's  books,  his  personal  influence  as  adviser  to 
the  labor  movement,  and  the  obvious  guildsman's 
hand  in  documents  such  as  the  Miners'  Bill  for 
Nationalization*  and  the  Foster  Report  to  the 
Building  Trades  Parliament  "—are  suggestions  of 
this.    One  shrewd  observer  declared  that: — 

"The  Guild  Socialist  propaganda  has  gone  as  far  in 
the  trade  union  movement  in  two  years  as  the  State 
Socialist  propaganda  had  gone  in  twenty  years." 

In  addition  to  these  elaborate  and  definite 
theories  of  control  there  is  a  large  body  of  opin- 
ion that  is  agreed  on  some  extension  of  workers* 
control  as  the  next  step  in  trade  unionism.  No 
trade  union  leader  would  admit  that  he  wanted 
less  control  than  the  minimum  offered  in  the 
Whitley  Councils  scheme — which  is  itself  some  in- 
ication  of  the  spread  of  the  control  doctrine. 

*  See  below,  p.  12. 

•  See  below,  p.  86. 


THE  DEMAND  FOR  CONTROL  7 

There  is  no  one  break  in  the  long  series  from 
Syndicalism  to  Whitleyism,  and  the  widespread 
acceptance  of  the  latter  in  middle-class  thinking  is 
a  hint  of  the  driving  force  of  the  more  drastic 
doctrines.  Next  possibly  to  ''nationalization," 
** control"  is  the  most  talked-of  word  among  trade 
union  theorists. 

The  control  issue,  moreover,  has  passed  from 
labor  theory  into  labor  activity  and  declared  pol- 
icy. Its  most  spectacular  expression  was  in  that 
revolt  against  or  within  trade  unionism  known  as 
the  Shop  Stewards'  Movement."  This,  it  is  true, 
was  many  things  besides  an  expression  of  the  de- 
mand for  control.  It  began  largely  as  a  protest 
against  the  special  helplessness  of  the  trade  imion 
leaders  before  the  special  war-time  problems.  The 
cost  of  living  was  rising  sharply,  dilution  was 
threatening  the  wage  standard  of  the  skilled  engi- 
neers,'' the  number  of  war-time  restrictions  was 
multiplying.  Meanwhile  the  trade  union  leaders 
were  bound  not  to  lead  strikes — first  by  the  "in- 
dustrial truce"  agreed  upon  at  the  beginning  of 
the  war,  later  by  the  anti-strike  provisions  of  the 
Munitions  Act.  The  unrest  broke  out  in  spontane- 
ous and  unauthorized  strikes.  The  movement 
found  leaders  in  the  shop  stewards  or  trade  union 
representatives  from  within  the  various  shops' 

•  G.  D.  H.  Cole,  Introduction  to  Trade  Unionitm,  pp.  53-58. 

*  See  below,  pp.  100  and  189. 


8  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

men  whose  position  before  the  war  had  meant 
little  more  than  collecting  dues  for  the  union.* 
The  issues  were  concrete  and  immediate.  The  first 
of  these  strikes  was  the  ''Tuppenny  Strike"  for  a 
long-delayed  wage  increase  on  the  Clyde  in  Jan- 
uary, 1915.  The  strike  committee  of  stewards 
elected  from  the  various  works  organized  per- 
manently as  the  Clyde  Workers'  Committee  and 
this  simple  type  of  structure  was  copied  by  other 
districts.  The  movement  at  Sheffield  broke  out 
when  a  certain  skilled  engineer  was  drafted  into 
the  army.  And  so  through  the  other  engineering 
centers.  The  movement  was  first  and  most  simply 
the  workers'  attempt  by  whatever  means  came 
handy  to  get  the  inmaediate  concessions  which 
their  official  machinery  was  failing  to  win.  It 
became  in  part,  however,  a  revolt  against  official- 
ism  in  general.  This  in  fact  furnished  the  chief 
dogma  of  the  movement — "the  vesting  of  control 
of  policy  in  the  rank  and  file" — and  its  common 
name,  the  "Rank  and  File  Movement."  "Refer 
grievances  to  the  rank  and  file,"  and  "Get  a  move 
on  in  the  shop  before  reporting  to  official  sources, ' ' 
are  rules  from  the  Sheffield  Shop  Stewards '  Man- 
ual. The  movement  was  largely  a  breaking  away 
from  the  cumbrous  structure  of  engineering  trade 
unionism.    "We  organize  for  power,"  wrote  the 


•  Ministry  of  Labour,  Works  Committees,  pp.  2-10,     See  Note 
on  Sources. 


THE  DEMAND  FOR  CONTROL  9 

chief  spokesman  of  the  movement,^  *'and  yet  we 
find  the  workers  in  the  workshop  divided  not  only 
amongst  a  score  of  branches  but  a  score  of 
unions."  Shop  vs.  branch  and  mditstry  vs. 
craft,  were  the  two  issues  of  organization.  The 
trade  union  branch  in  engineering  is  based  on  the 
residence,  not  the  working-place,  of  the  mem- 
bers. Men  who  work  side  by  side  may  be 
scattered  among  a  number  of  branches.  But 
grievances  arise  in  particular  shops.  Therefore 
''Direct  Representation  from  the  Workshops  to 
the  Committees"  is  the  first  of  the  ''Principles" 
on  the  member's  card  of  the  Sheffield  Workers* 
Committee.  In  the  second  place,  the  industry  is 
organized  in  a  score  or  more  of  separate  and  often 
competing  trade  unions.^"  Jealousy  frequently 
runs  high  between  craft  and  craft  and  higher  be- 
tween skilled  and  unskilled.  The  shop  stewards ' 
movement  took  in  all  grades  of  labor  and  was  in 
effect  an  amalgamation  from  below.  "Work 
always  for  the  solidarity  of  all  the  workers,"  is 
the  last  rule  from  the  Shop  Stewards'  Manual. 
The  movement  was,  then,  a  double  attempt  to  fit 
the  structure  of  the  labor  movement  to  the  struc- 
ture of  the  industrial  unit. 
So  much  for  the  motives  other  than  the  demand 


•  J.  T.  Murphy,  The  Workers'  Committee.    See  Note  on  Sources. 
'•  Eight  of  these  unions,  including  the  Amalgamated  Society  of 
Engineers,  have  just  voted  to  unite. 


10  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

for  control.  The  movement  won  its  chief  support 
by  appeals  to  simple  and  very  practical  war-time 
issues ;  its  chief  effect  may  possibly  be  in  the  field 
of  trade  union  structure.  But  its  connections 
with  the  demand  for  workers'  control  are  close 
and  highly  significant.  Whatever  the  rank  and 
file  wanted,  the  conspicuous  leaders  were  out  for 
control.  This  is  evident  in  all  the  propaganda  of 
the  movement.  The  first  of  the  ** Objects"  on  the 
Shefiield  member's  card  was  **To  obtain  an  ever- 
increasing  Control  of  Workshop  Conditions."  It 
is  evident  in  such  by-products  of  the  movement  as 
the  Clyde  Dilution  Scheme  "  and  the  Gallecher- 
Paton  memorandum  on  collective  contract.^^  But 
it  is  clearest  of  all  in  the  actual  seizures  of  power 
by  the  shop  stewards  and  in  the  way  the  leaders 
played  on  each  particular  grievance  and  played 
up  each  particular  issue  to  swell  the  general  de- 
mand for  control.  Several  instances  of  shop 
steward  tactics  are  given  in  Section  X.  The  use 
of  a  particular  blacksmith's  objection  to  the  boss's 
watching  his  fire  to  establish  a  general  refusal 
to  be  watched  at  work  is  a  minor  but  typical  case." 
Moreover  the  very  changes  in  structure  themselves 
were  often  argued  on  control  grounds:  fit  your 
organization  to  industry  to  make  it  fit  to  control 
industry.    The  shop  stewards'  movement  was  a 

'»  See  below,  pp.  197-201. 
"  See  below,  p.  173. 
"  See  below,  p.  138. 


THE  DEMAND  FOR  CONTROL  11 

genuine  movement  towards  the  control  of  industry. 
And  as  an  object-lesson  in  control  it  has  become 
a  stimulus  to  further  demands.  The  powers  won 
by  the  shop  stewards  are  being  used  up  and  down 
the  country  as  a  text  for  vigorous  propaganda. 
The  shop  stewards'  control  was  decidedly  con- 
tagious control ";  its  actual  extent  may  be  easily 
underrated  by  an  outsider.  It  was  recorded  in  no 
formal  agreements.  It  rested  on  the  war  shortage 
of  labor  and  was  abruptly  checked  in  the  period 
of  unemployment  that  followed  the  end  of  the 
war.  The  full  story  has  nowhere  been  put  to- 
gether, and  the  evidence  must  be  pieced  out  from 
th6  accounts  of  the  shop  stewards  themselves  and 
from  employers'  tales  of  "what  they  had  to  put 
up  with  during  the  war,"  but  it  is  clear  that  the 
movement  was  enormously  powerful  throughout 
the  great  engineering  centers  and  that  it  has 
spread  to  other  industries,  and  it  is  clear  that  in 
certain  works  the  shop  stewards  exercised  the 
greatest  degree  of  control  ever  held  by  British 
workers  in  modern  industry.  The  shop  stewards' 
movement  was  both  an  expression  of  the  demand 
for  control  and  an  incitement  to  further  demands. 
But  the  demand  for  control  is  by  no  means  con- 
fined to  ' '  rebel ' '  trade  unionism.  The  demand  that 
among  the  engineers  broke  through  the  union 
machinery  has  in  other  unions  found  its  outlet  in 

"  See  below,  Section  XIX. 


12  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

oflScial  programs.  Its  expressions  in  official  trade 
union  policy  have  been  less  picturesque  than  the 
unofficial  outbreak,  but  they  are  no  less  signifi- 
cant. Two  of  the  greatest  trade  unions,  the 
Miners '  Federation  with  its  800,000  members  and 
the  National  Union  of  Railwaymen  with  its  450,- 
000,  have  not  only  accepted  the  principle  of  con- 
trol but  have  put  forward  specific  schemes  of  con- 
trol as  serious  parts  of  their  programs.  At  the 
annual  conference  of  the  Miners  on  July  9,  1918, 
the  following  resolution  was  carried: — 

"That  in  the  opinion  of  this  conference  the  time 
has  arrived  in  the  history  of  the  coal  mining  industry 
when  it  is  clearly  in  the  national  interests  to  transfer 
the  entire  industry  from  private  ownership  and  control 
to  State  ownership  with  joint  control  and  administror 
tion  hy  the  workmen  and  the  State"  (italics  mine). 

* '  The  workmen  should  have  some  directive  power 
in  the  industry  in  which  they  are  engaged,"  said 
Mr.  Frank  Hodges  in  urging  the  resolution.  **I 
do  not  believe  that  nationalization  will  do  any  good 
for  anybody,  unless  it  is  accompanied  by  an  effec- 
tive form  of  working-class  control."  Another 
leader  declared: — **We  have  the  brains  amongst 
the  miners  to  work  the  mines."  The  sense  of  this 
resolution  was  embodied  in  a  Mines  Nationaliza- 
tion Bill"  which  was  drafted  early  in  1919  and 

"  See  below,  Note  on  Sources. 


THE  DEMAND  FOR  CONTROL  13 

presented  to  the  Coal  Commission.  Under  this 
scheme  the  industry  would  be  administered,  under 
a  Minister  of  Mines,  by  a  National  Council  made 
up  of  ten  Government  nominees  and  ten  men 
chosen  by  the  Miners'  Federation  and  by  a  series 
of  subordinate  District  and  Pit  Councils  on  each 
of  which  one  half  of  the  members  should  be  di- 
rectly elected  by  the  workers  affected.  The  system 
of  control  outlined  in  the  majority  report  of  the 
Coal  Commission,  known  as  the  Sankey  Scheme,^* 
differs  from  this  in  the  important  particular  that 
on  each  of  these  boards  the  workers  are  given 
slightly  less  than  half  of  the  places.  The  repre- 
sentatives of  the  Miners  nevertheless  accepted  the 
Sankey  Report  with  minor  reservations.  After 
the  Government  rejected  it,  it  was  endorsed  by  an 
overwhelming  majority  at  the  Trades  Union  Con- 
gress at  Glasgow  and  is  now  the  subject  of  vigor- 
ous propaganda  on  the  part  of  the  entire  trade 
union  movement. 

The  National  Union  of  Railwaymen  was  first 
committed  to  a  control  policy  by  the  following 
resolution  passed  by  a  National  Conference  of 
District  Councils  early  in  1917: — 

"That  this  Conference,  seeing  that  the  Railways  are 
being  controlled  by  the  State  for  the  benefit  of  the 
nation  during  the  war,  is  of  opinion  that  they  should 
not  revert  to  private  ownership  afterwards.     Further, 

"  See  below.  Note  on  Sources. 


U  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

we  believe  that  national  welfare  demands  that  they 
should  be  acquired  by  the  State  to  be  jointly  controlled 
and  managed  by  the  State  and  representatives  of  the 
N.U.R." 

Mr.  Bellamy  in  his  President's  address  that  year 
declared : — 

"Whether  nationalization  or  [state]  control  be  de- 
cided upon,  it  ought  to  be  made  unmistakably  clear 
that  neither  system  will  be  acceptable  to  railwaymen 
unless  we  are  given  a  share  in  the  management." 

A  special  conference  in  November,  1917,  voted  by 
a  majority  of  74  to  1 : — 

"That  there  should  be  equal  representation,  both  na- 
tional and  local,  for  this  union  upon  the  management 
of  all  railways  in  the  United  Kingdom." 

In  March,  1918,  the  Executive  at  a  special  meet- 
ing adopted  a  control  scheme  similar  to  that  of 
the  Miners  and  providing  for  a  National  Board  of 
Control,  half  of  whose  members  should  be  elected 
by  the  House  of  Commons  and  half  by  the  railway 
trade  unions.  The  scheme  is  now  under  negotia- 
tion with  the  Prime  Minister  and  the  Minister  of 
Transport.  The  Government's  counter  offer  seems 
to  be  an  improvement  in  the  Conciliation  Board 
machinery — to  allow  for  the  hearing  of  grievances 
over  discipline — and  a  small  minority  of  places 
for  the  union  on  the  Railway  Executive  Committee. 


THE  DEMAND  FOR  CONTROL  15 

The  Miners  and  Railwaymen,  then,  have  put  con- 
trol schemes  into  their  official  programs  and  have 
pressed  them  in  their  actual  bargaining.  The 
other  unions  have  no  such  detailed  proposals  as 
parts  of  their  serious  immediate  policy,  but  it 
would  be  easy  to  fill  a  book  with  statements  from 
trade  union  journals  and  from  responsible  trade 
union  officials  that  the  control  of  industry  is  their 
** ultimate  aim."  The  Postal  and  Telegraph 
Clerks,^'  whose  leaders  are  all  National  Guilds- 
men,  are  definitely  committed  to  a  control  policy. 
The  following  bit  from  a  correspondent's  letter 
is  a  fair  sample  of  the  tone  of  their  official  publi- 
cation : — 

"I  am  out  for  a  Postal  Guild;  so  is  Francis.  He 
wouldn't  be  worth  a  dime  ...  if  he  wasn't." 

But  it  is  unnecessary  to  go  down  the  list  of 
individual  unions  to  discover  commitments  of  the 
trade  union  movement  to  the  idea  of  control.  The 
issue  came  before  the  1'rades  Union  Congress  at 
Glasgow  in  September,  1919.  Mr.  Bromley  of 
the  Locomotive  Engineers  moved  a  resolution 
favoring  workers'  control  of  industry  to  end  ex- 
ploitation. The  motion  was  carried  unanimously 
and  with  some  enthusiasm.  Control  has  become 
an  official  and  avowed  aim  of  the  whole  labor 
movement. 

"  Now  a  part  of  the  new  Union  of  Post  Office  Workers. 


16  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

How  mucli  this  commitment  really  means  is 
another  matter,  A  resolution  carried  unanimously 
and  without  debate  at  a  Congress  whose  real 
interest  was  in  the  hot  jfight  over  ** Direct  Action" 
is  hardly  evidence  of  immediate  responsible 
policy.  But  together  with  the  other  commitments 
to  control,  it  is  a  significant  sign  of  the  times.  It 
is  at  least  a  sign  of  the  phenomenally  rapid  growth 
of  the  demand  for  control.  In  1907,  the  leaders  of 
the  railwaymen  declared  in  all  honesty  that  they 
had  no  intention  of  having  anything  to  do  with 
discipline.  In  1919,  the  railway  unions  are  nego- 
tiating on  the  basis  of  a  demand  for  half  control 
of  the  entire  management.  This  is  partly  a  matter 
of  the  increased  power  of  the  union;  a  union's 
strength  may  be  roughly  gauged  by  the  issues  on 
which  it  fights.  But  it  is  largely  a  matter  of  a 
change  in  the  ideas  of  the  trade  union  movement. 
The  demand  for  ''control  of  industry"  in  so 
many  words  is  a  new  thing  or  possibly  the  revival 
of  a  long-forgotten  thing.  Bits  of  what  would  now 
be  called  control  have  long  been  fought  for  and 
often  w«n  by  the  trade  unions — of  that  this  whole 
book  is  evidence.  But  the  conscious  demand  is 
a  new  and  significant  phenomenon.  The  very 
vocabulary. of  control  is  new.  It  had  hardly  been 
heard  before  Mr.  Tom  Mann ''  stumped  England 

"  A  leader  in  the  great  dock  strike  of  1889,  mass  orator  to 
three  continents,  now  General  Secretary  of  the  Amalgamated 
Society  of  Engineers, 


THE  DEMAND  FOR  CONTROL  17 

in  1911.  All  the  movements  discussed  have 
started  since  that  time.  Eight  years  of  propa- 
ganda at  the  most  and  a  new  and  revolutionary- 
idea  officially  accepted  by  the  trade  union  move- 
ment. 

The  resolution  indicates  one  more  thing — that 
there  is  within  trade  unionism  practically  no 
active  opposition  to  the  idea  of  control.  There 
is  no  doubt  at  all  of  the  truth  of  Mr.  Cole's  claim 
in  the  Introduction  of  Trade  Unionism  that  the 
theorists  of  control  are  in  line  with  the  immediate 
tendencies  of  the  ** younger  active  trade  union- 
ists." But  just  here  must  be  made  the  first 
serious  discount  of  the  force  of  the  demand. 
Younger  active  trade  unionists  are  by  any 
count  a  mere  handful.  The  percentage  of 
members  interested  in  general  policy  is  small 
in  any  union.  *'I  sometimes  feel,"  said  Mr. 
Hodges,  ''that  there  is  a  great  mountain  of 
indifference  even  in  the  Mining  Movement." 
Younger  active  trade  unions  are  perhaps  also  a 
minority.  Few  unions  have  both  the  power  and 
the  desire  to  push  forward  programs  of  control. 
Many  must  be  written  off  almost  completely  in 
any  calculation  of  the  demand.  The  great  cotton 
unions  have  hardly  been  touched  by  the  control 
propaganda.  The  aristocratic  monopolists  of  the 
old  crafts  discussed  in  Section  XIX  make  no  part 
of  the  new  demand.     The  women's  unions  have 


18  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

showed  little  effective  demand  for  control — so  far 
at  least  dilution  by  woman  labor  has  been  also  a 
dilution  of  the  demand  for  control.  All  this  is 
not  to  minimize  the  demand.  Control  has  been 
genuinely  fought  for  in  trade  union  activity.  The 
idea  of  control  has  officially  captured  the  trade 
union  movement.  But  to  say  that  the  trade  union 
movement  is  committed  to  control  by  a  resolution 
passed  unanimously  at  Glasgow  is  not  to  say  that 
control  is  actively  demanded  by  each  of  the  five 
and  a  quarter  million  trade  unionists  represented 
at  the  Congress.  Nor  is  it  to  say  that  every  trade 
union  represented  will  fight  for  control.  Trade 
unionism  is  no  such  coherent  and  united  force. 

Nor  is  control  so  simple  and  definite  a  thing. 
The  word  is  a  slogan  and  a  convenient  general 
term.  But  in  actual  reference  to  the  facts  of  in- 
dustry it  breaks  up  into  a  bewildering  variety  of 
rights  and  claims — as  the  rest  of  the  book  will 
show.  Control  is  no  ''simple  central  objective," 
no  one  clear-cut  thing  which  people  either  know 
they  want  or  know  they  don't  want.  The  demand 
cannot  be  put  glibly  into  a  single  phrase  or  a 
single  resolution — too  many  diverse  motives  are 
blended  and  crossed  in  the  strivings  of  many 
workers  for  the  complicated  set  of  things  called 
control. 

The  demand  for  control  is  not  the  unified  ex- 


THE  DEMAND  FOR  CONTROL  19 

pression  of  some  single  specific  impulse.  If  it 
were,  it  might  be  easier  to  separate  it  from  the 
other  strands  of  motive  in  industrial  life.  But 
instead,  the  elements  of  the  demand  must  be 
hunted  for  in  the  whole  jungle  of  the  reactions  of 
workers  to  the  industrial  situation.  It  is  a  hunt 
for  facts  that  can  neither  be  classified  sharply  nor 
weighed  accurately.  * '  It  is  essential, ' '  says  the  re- 
port of  the  Garton  Foundation,"  '*to  disentangle 
as  far  as  possible  the  economic  and  non-economic 
factors. ' '  That  would  be  hard  enough,  but  would 
lead  only  to  the  edge  of  the  problem  of  distinguish- 
ing among  the  non-economic  factors.  It  is  a  study 
to  which  there  is  no  end,  but  even  the  most  tenta- 
tive beginning  may  fill  in  some  of  the  human  con- 
tent of  the  phrases  of  control.  What  are  some  of 
the  wants  and  feelings  on  which  the  propaganda 
is  based? 

A  start  might  be  made  by  setting  down  a  few 
general  heads  under  which  to  group  the  workers* 
feelings  about  industry.  The  worker's  interests 
in  industry  are  roughly  these ; — 

(1)  How  much  he  gets — Wages,  etc. 

(2)  What  it's  for— The  Object  of  the  Work. 

(3)  How  he's  treated — ^Freedom  and  Author- 
ity. 

(4)  What  he  actually  does — ^Workmanship. 
To  put  these  down  in  a  row  is  not  to  pretend  that 

"  See  Note  on  Sources. 


20  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

they  are  equal  or  even  sharply  distinct,  but  the 
classification  will  serve  as  a  tool  in  the  examina- 
tion and  comparison  of  some  of  the  elements  in 
the  demand  for  control.  The  first  two  sets  of 
interests  are  concerned  with  the  consumption  of 
the  products  of  industry,  the  others  with  the  con- 
ditions of  production.  The  third  and  fourth  in- 
terests fit  closely  the  issues  of  discipline  and 
management  which  are  the  frontier  of  control. 
The  first  and  second  apparently  bear  less  directly 
on  the  personal  and  technical  organization  of  pro- 
duction. But  no  serious  study  could  ignore  the 
cross-relationships  between  all  four  sets  of  mo- 
tives. 

How  much  the  worker  gets — in  wages,  hours 
of  leisure,  etc. — is  of  course  the  chief  field  of  trade 
union  activity.^"  The  immediate  bargain  for  hours 
and  wages  is  ruled  out  of  the  subsequent  descrip- 
tions of  the  extent  of  control.  But  most  of  the 
complicated  forms  of  control  are  themselves 
merely  elaborate  safeguards  of  the  standard  of 
living.  Most  of  the  control  already  won  by  the 
workers  is  control  as  a  bulwark  of  wages.  The 
checkweighman  is  there  to  see  that  wages  are 

'"  The  annual  official  Reports  on  Strikes  and  Lockouts  give 
figures  of  the  numbers  of  workpeople  involved  in  disputes  and 
a  classification  of  the  disputes  according  to  the  issues  involved. 
According  to  these,  64  per  cent  of  the  workpeople  out  in  the 
years  1901-13  were  out  over  (question  of  wages  and  hours.  See 
Note  on  Sources. 


THE  DEMAND  FOR  CONTROL  21 

not  nibbled  away  by  fraud.^^  Apprenticeship  and 
similar  restrictions  are  frankly  for  purposes  of 
wage  monopoly."  The  constitution  of  the  Amal- 
gamated Society  of  Engineers  talks  of  the  "vested 
interest"  in  craft  rights.  Consultation  over 
changes  in  technique  is  mainly  an  outgrowth  of 
the  piece-rate  bargain.^'  It  is  only  a  slight  exag- 
geration to  say  that  all  present  forms  of  workers' 
control,  except  those  that  secure  the  rudiments  of 
decency  in  discipline,  are  by-products  of  the 
wages-and-hours  struggle. 

The  wage  element  is  the  dominant  factor  in 
present-day  control.  But  what  are  its  bearings  on 
the  demands  for  more  control?  There  are  at  least 
three  widely  different  interrelations  to  be  noticed. 
The  first  and  most  talked-of  is  opposition.  The 
average  workman,  it  is  often  said,  is  interested  in 
"mere  wages."  ^*  He  cares  nothing  about  con- 
trol; he  doesn't  want  to  run  things.  What  he 
wants  is  to  draw  his  pay  regularly  and  get  away 
as  quickly  as  possible.     Nor  is  this  merely  an 


"Section  XI. 

"  Section  V. 

"  Section  XIV. 

"  I  do  not  intend  the  phrase  "mere  wages"  to  carry  any  moral 
stigma.  It  is  not  argued  that  it  is  sordid  or  immoral  to  want 
wages  and  short  hours  and  a  steady  job,  and  gloriously  moral  to 
want  control  and  personal  dignity  and  an  interesting  task.  Nor 
is  it  argued  that  it  is  natural  and  healthy  for  men  to  want  money 
and  decent  ventilation,  but  unnatural  and  sentimental  for  them 
to  desire  freedom  and  joy  in  work.  The  question  is  not  what 
people  should  want  but  the  sufficiently  difficult  one  of  what  people 
do  want. 


22  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

employer's  view  of  working-class  psychology.  I 
heard  it  also  from  an  impatient  leader  of  shop 
stewards  who  said  that  most  workmen  were  **not 
interested  beyond  wages  and  hours"  and  that 
therefore  he  *'had  no  intention  of  waiting  for  the 
majority."  It  is  true  that  the  wage  and  control 
movements  are  sometimes  in  competition,  and  no 
doubt  on  a  straight  vote  between  wages  and  con- 
trol wages  would  still  win. 

But  it  is  a  great  mistake  to  suppose  that  the 
two  interests  are  always  or  even  usually  in  opposi- 
tion. The  short-run  economic  interest — what  R. 
F.  Hoxie  called  the  demand  for  ''more  now" — is 
indifferent  to  control  movements.  The  longer-run 
economic  demands — which  take  shape  in  the  plan- 
ning of  drastic  changes  in  the  distribution  of 
wealth — may  on  the  other  hand  be  found  greatly 
strengthening  the  demand  for  workers'  control. 
In  fact,  the  latter  form  a  major  part  of  the  driv- 
ing force  of  current  control  movements.  The  shop 
stewards  are  emphatic  on  this  point.  ''What  we 
want,"  a  Sheffield  leader  told  me  promptly,  "is 
the  product  of  the  industry,  and" — after  hesitat- 
ing a  moment — "conditions,"  by  which  he  meant 
chiefly  protection  from  trade  diseases.  Mr.  Frank 
Hodges  of  the  Miners  has  been  perhaps  the 
clearest  of  all  labor  leaders  in  his  insistence  on 
the  need  for  control  as  an  "avenue  for  great" — 
and  non-economic — "longings."    Yet  he  too  de- 


THE  DEMAND  FOR  CONTROL  23 

clares  that  the  control  demand  is  mainly  one  for 
satisfactions  outside  working  hours: — 

"Workers'  control  is  a  means,  and  not  an  end. 
Work  in  the  modern  industrial  world  is  unpleasant 
for  the  majority  of  workers.  They  will  find  their  ex- 
pression as  human  beings  outside  the  working  hours. 
.  .  .  Control  they  will  use  to  get  efficient  manage- 
ment and  machinery.  .  .  .  Control  they  wish  to  save 
them  from  the  waste  and  insecurity  and  long  hours 
of  the  present  system  .  .  .  which  leaves  no  secure 
and  creative  leisure.  .  .  .  But  control  will  never  of 
itself  be  an  answer  to  the  instincts  thwarted  by  stan- 
dardized machine  industry.  The  answer  will  be  found 
outside  working  hours. ' '  ^' 

The  demand  for  high  pay  may  strengthen  tlio 
demand  for  control.  The  desire  for  sure  pay — 
for  security  against  unemployment — is  even 
nearer  the  surface  of  control  schemes.  This  is  in 
fact  the  chief  immediate  appeal  to  the  workers  of 
such  an  elaborate  plan  of  control  as  the  Foster 
Report.^*  Indeed,  several  working-class  students 
have  told  me  that  the  desire  for  security  is  the 
chief  factor  in  the  demand  for  control.  Both 
security  and  high  wages  might  conceivably  be 
won  without  workers'  control,  but  the  demands 
for  them  furnish  much  of  the  impetus  of  current 
movements  toward  control. 


Quoted  by  Arthur  Gleason,  What  the  Workers  Want. 
See  below,  p.  86.    And  cf.  all  of  Section  IV. 


24.  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

There  is  still  a  third  interrelation  between  the 
wage  motive  and  the  ''non-economic  factors"  in 
the  demand  for  control.  What  starts  as  a  wage 
demand  may  easily — often  unconsciously — ^be 
colored  by  an  admixture  of  other  motives.  The 
clearest  case  is  the  transition  in  motive  from 
wages  to  workmanship  to  be  discussed  in  Section 
XV.  Every  demand  on  the  part  of  the  Miners  for 
improved  technique  has  had  as  its  basis  the  effect 
of  bad  management  on  piece-work  earnings.  The 
first  and  obvious  motive  was  wages.  Yet  a  large 
part  of  the  feeling  with  which  I  have  heard  indi- 
vidual miners  talk  about  needed  improvements 
was  clearly — whether  they  knew  it  or  not — a  sheer 
workmanlike  disgust  at  inefificiency.  And  at  the 
Miners'  Conference  on  output  committees,  held 
in  November,  1916,  the  Yorkshire  leader,  Mr.  Her- 
bert Smith,  declared: — 

"I  say  it  has  nothing  to  do  with  it  .  .  .  whether 
a  man  gets  15  shillings  or  20  shillings  .  .  .  oppor- 
tunity must  be  given  .  .  .  to  get  as  many  tubs  as 
possible." 

The  strictly  economic  motives,  then,  are  found 
both  opposing  and  greatly  strengthening,  and  oc- 
casionally even  passing  bodily  over  into,  the  non- 
economic  factors  in  the  demand  for  control. 
Clearly  they  are  not  the  whole  demand,  but  any 
estimate  of  the  future  of  the  demand  is  worthless 


THE  DEMAND  FOR  CONTROL  25 

if  it  does  not  consider  on  which  side  their  great 
weight  is  likely  to  fail. 

Certain  of  the  motives  centering  around  the 
object  for  which  the  work  is  done  or  the  purpose 
for  which  the  product  is  to  be  used — what  it's  for 
and  for  whose  benefit — have  a  bearing  on  control. 
The  good  economic  man,  it  is  true,  in  an  imper- 
sonal economic  system  cares  for  none  of  these 
things.    But  actual  workers  sometimes  do.    The 
patriotic  motive  made  a  difference  in  war-time  pro- 
duction.   Moreover  workers  sometimes  refuse  to 
do  certain  pieces  of  work  because  they  disagree 
with  the  purposes  of  it: — the  Sailors'  Union  dur- 
ing the  war  would  not  carry  delegates  to  the 
Stockholm     International     Labor     Conference; 
more  recently  certain  trade  unionists  have  refused 
to  make  munitions  for  the  Russian  Campaign. 
More  to  the  present  point  is  the  extent  to  which  the 
control  demand  is  fortified  by  the  objection  to 
working  for  private  profit.    The  organization  of 
industry  is  right  enough  as  it  is,  one  shop  steward 
told  me,  what  we  want  is  to  eliminate  private 
ownership.    The  Foster  Report  names  as  one  of 
four  causes  of  restriction  of  output,  *'the  disin- 
clination of  the  workmen  to  make  unlimited  profit 
for  private  employers. "    "  We  don 't  want  to  work 
any  longer  for  private  profit, ' '  was  the  burden  of 
the  Miners'  case  before  the  Coal  Commission. 


26  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

That  this  was  more  than  a  wage  matter  and  clearly- 
bound  up  with  state  socialist  or  community  feel- 
ing, comes  out  clearly  in  a  passage  in  the  cross- 
examination  of  Mr.  Straker  of  the  Northumber- 
land Miners  by  Mr.  Cooper  of  the  Northumber- 
land Coalowners: — 

"Mr.  Straker.  .  .  .  He  [the  miner]  objects  to  those 
profits  being  collected  by  any  few  individuals. 

Mr.  Cooper.  What  possible  difference  can  it  make 
to  him  whether  the  profits  are  colleeted  by  few  or 
many,  or  by  a  neutral  body  like  the  State,  so  long 
as  he  gets  his  fair  share? 

Mr.  Straker.  Because  he  is  realizing  now  that  he 
is  a  citizen  of  the  State." 

The  feeling  is  evidently  in  part  that  the  status 
of  "public  servant"  is  somehow  honorable  in  it- 
self. It  is  no  accident  that  the  two  strongest  official 
trade  union  movements  toward  control — those  of 
the  Miners '  Federation  and  the  National  Union  of 
Railwayman — are  for  "nationalization  and  joint 
control. ' '  There  is  no  doubt  that  the  older  social- 
ist feeling  is  a  powerful  element  in  the  control 
demand.  One  careful  working  class  student,  in 
defining  the  essence  of  the  demand  for  control, 
said  that  it  was:  "To  serve  the  community,  not 
a  man  and  a  class."  The  blending  is  not  logically 
necessary.  Socialist  Utopias  have  been  planned 
with  no  thought  of  workers '  control.  The  interest 
in  what  happens  to  the  product  of  industry  does 


THE  DEMAND  FOR  CONTROL  27 

not  necessarily  involve  an  interest  in  the  internal 
control  of  the  production.  But  in  the  ideas  of 
the  British  labor  movement,  at  least,  these  two 
sets  of  motives  are  inextricably  mingled.  When 
Mr.  Straker  says  that  the  miner  must  ''feel  that 
the  industry  is  being  run  by  him  in  order  to  pro- 
duce coal  for  the  use  of  the  community/'  it  would 
be  hard  for  him  to  say  where  the  one  motive  ends 
and  the  other  begins. 

How  the  worker  is  treated — what  sort  of  author- 
ity he  is  under,  how  much  freedom  he  is  allowed, 
how  much  authority  he  has — on  these  questions  the 
demand  for  control  becomes  most  nearly  a  de- 
mand for  control  for  control's  sake.  ''The  con- 
flict of  interests  between  employers  and  employed 
in  private  industry  has  two  aspects,"  writes  Mr. 
Henry  Clay  in  the  Observer,  "the  purely  economic 
aspect  of  wages,  and  the  moral  aspect  of  subor- 
dination to  discipline."  There  is  no  lack  of 
testimony  to  the  importance  of  the  discipline  as- 
pect in  present-day  labor  feeling.  Self-respect, 
status,  independence,  personal  freedom,  personal 
dignity, — a  whole  propaganda  literature  and  a 
whole  set  of  commentaries  on  labor  have  been 
written  around  these  terms.  And  the  roots  of 
this  sort  of  feeling  run  far  back  into  the  older 
trade  unionism.  Trade  union  membership,  says 
the  constitution  of  the  Friendly  Society  of  Iron- 


28  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

founders, ' '  enables  men  to  exhibit  the  principle  of 
self-respect  which,  if  duly  exercised,  will  in  its 
turn  command  the  respect  of  others,  thereby  plac- 
ing a  man  in  that  position  where  he  may  demand 
that  he  should  be  treated  as  a  factor  in  any 
arrangement  involving  his  services,  and  not  as 
though  he  was  a  mere  human  machine."  A  re- 
cent account  of  a  dispute  carried  on  by  the  shop 
stewards  at  a  Cowes  aircraft  factory  runs  in  al- 
most the  same  terms: — 

"A  mass-meeting  of  all  sections  made  it  quite  clear 
that  they  were  going  to  insist  that  any  attempt  to  treat 
any  group  of  men  without  regard  to  their  feelings  or 
self-respect  would  be  treated  as  a  challenge  to  all  the 
unions. ' ' 

Lord  Robert  Cecil  put  the  case  to  the  House  of 
Commons  in  the  phrases  of  political  theory: — 

"What  is  really  the  position  of  the  wage-earner  in 
most  industries?  He  is  paid  so  much  wages.  He  is  a 
mere  item.  He  has  to  carry  out  a  certain  industrial 
policy  on  which  he  has  never  been  consulted,  and  with 
which  he  has  no  power  of  dealing  at  all.  He  is  not 
really  a  free,  self-governing  man  in  industrial  matters. 
...  It  [this  feeling]  is  really  at  the  bottom  of  this 

claim  for  nationalization." 

I 

Professor  Edwin  Cannan  put  the  same  claim  into 
homelier  language  in  his  testimony  before  the 
Coal  Commission : — 


THE  DEMAND  FOR  CONTROL  29 

*  *  It  is  all  right  to  work  with  anyone ;  what  is  disagree- 
able is  to  feel  too  distinctly  that  you  are  working  under 
someone.  You  suffer  from  this  feeling  when  you  are 
told  to  do  what  you  know,  or  think  you  know,  to  be  the 
wrong  thing,  and  also  when  you  are  told  to  do  the  right 
thing  in  a  disagreeable  manner." 


Dr.  Cannan's  shrewd  analysis  makes  a  good 
beginning  for  an  attempt  to  separate  out  the  ele- 
ments of  the  freedom-authority  demand.  The 
most  conspicuous  is  surely  the  objection  to  be- 
ing told  in  a  disagreeable  manner,  to  being  told 
the  wrong  way.  It  is  just  this  that  the  "Welsh 
colliers  and  the  railwaymen  and  the  other  workers 
described  in  Section  X  are  ''quick  to  resent." 
Being  told  the  wrong  way  is  almost  an  exact  trans- 
lation of  "alleged  harassing  conduct  of  a  fore- 
man," and  the  great  number  of  disputes  on  this 
head  is  a  sign  of  the  strength  of  the  feeling.  The 
aircraft-workers  already  quoted  were  demanding 
' '  the  right  to  work  under  a  manager  who  will  real- 
ize that  men  are  men  inside  the  shop,  and  not 
servile  slaves."  Similar  evidence  of  the  intensity 
of  this  resentment  against  harsh  discipline  may 
be  taken  from  a  writer  whose  sympathies  are 
entirely  on  the  employers'  side.  The  author  of 
The  Mam^Power  of  the  Nation  "  is  warning  fore- 
men of  "The  Pitfalls  of  the  Promoted":— 

"  See  Note  on  Sources. 


30  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

"Domination,  even  when  veneered  by  a  display  of 
sympathy,  tends  to  active  guardianship  of  privileges 
cherished  by  the  worker  and  the  exercise  of  that  will- 
fulness which  finds  expression  too  often  in  an  enforce- 
ment of  selfish  rights.  In  fact,  were  one  to  probe 
deeply  into  the  basal  cause  of  many  disputes  in  works, 
it  would  be  found  that  in  a  large  number  of  cases  a 
little  thoughtfulness  and  tact  on  the  part  of  the  fore- 
man would  have  nipped  the  trouble  in  the  bud." 


There  is  no  doubt  at  all  that  irritation  at  ''petty 
tyranny  or  constant  bullying"  is  '*at  the  bottom 
of  some  of  the  bitterest  strikes." 

All  these  hot  protests  against  particular  abuses 
of  authority  are  perhaps  not  yet  a  demand  for  con- 
trol. There  is  certainly  a  distinction  between  the 
resentment  against  being  controlled  in  a  certain 
way  and  the  resentment  against  being  controlled 
at  all.  But  even  more  significant  than  the  distinc- 
tion is  the  fact  that  the  one  passes  so  readily  over 
into  the  other.  The  objection  to  being  ''messed 
about"  by  an  unusually  fussy  foreman  becomes  an 
objection  to  being  "messed  about"  by  any  sort  of 
supervision.  The  fierce  resentment  against  ill- 
treatment  by  a  particular  "gafiFer"  or  boss 
crystallizes  into  the  general  phrases  "sack  the 
gaffer"  or  "eliminate  the  bosses."  Resentment 
at  being  given  orders  in  a  disagreeable  manner  be- 
comes, as  Cannan  suggests,  the  general  resent- 
ment at  feeling  too  distinctly  under  orders  at  all. 


THE  DEMAND  FOR  CONTROL  31 

Much  of  the  touchiness  of  the  workers  toward  the 
display  of  authority  comes  very  near  to  resent- 
ment against  all  control.  *'The  British  attitude," 
said  the  secretary  of  a  powerful  employers'  asso- 
ciation, '*is  this : —  I  know  how  to  do  my  job  and 
won't  be  told  how."  ** Policing"  is  pretty 
generally  resented.  And  sometimes  the  objection 
is  put  rigorously  into  practice,  as  in  the  case  of 
the  Scottish  miners  who  refuse  to  work  while  the 
overman  is  in  their  stall  ^®  or  of  the  Clyde  black- 
smiths who  would  not  let  their  managing  director 
watch  their  jfires.^"  All  this  is  not  the  demand  for 
control  in  the  sense  of  an  explicit  theory  of  opposi- 
tion to  authority  and  only  a  small  minority  of  the 
workers  hold  any  such  complete  theory.  But  this 
resentment  may  easily  be  the  ** makings"  of  such 
a  demand.  One  of  the  shop  stewards  declared 
vehemently : — 

"People  talk  as  if  the  demand  for  control  was  some- 
thing that  had  to  be  created  among  the  workers  by  a 
slow  process,  hut  it's  there  already!" 

He  must  surely  have  meant,  however,  that  it  was 
"there"  in  the  shape  of  a  latent  resentment  that 
might  be  focused  on  this  or  that  particular  issue, 
not  *  *  there  "  as  a  fully  conscious  program.  There 
is  some  evidence,  too,  of  the  workings  of  this  pro- 
cess by  which  irritation  with  certain  orders  be- 

"  See  below,  p.  187. 
"  See  below,  p.  138, 


32  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

comes  a  resentment  against  all  control.  A  York- 
shire carpenter  gave  me  a  theory  to  account  for 
the  war-time  increase  in  the  control  demand  which 
illustrates  this  in  detail: — Work  before  the  war 
went  along  much  the  same  way  from  year  to 
year,  and  few  new  orders  had  to  be  given.  There 
was  nothing  to  make  the  workers  especially  con- 
scious that  they  were  under  control.  The  rapid 
war  changes  made  necessary  a  sudden  stream  of 
novel  and  disturbing  and  often  conflicting  orders. 
All  this  made  the  workers  feel  themselves  more 
distinctly  bossed,  and  therefore  ready  to  think 
in  terms  of  opposition  to  control.  The  intellectual 
history  of  one  of  the  prominent  Clyde  shop 
stewards  has  run  a  somewhat  similar  course.  Be- 
fore he  had  any  particular  social  theories  he  used 
to  resent  being  watched  at  his  work.  When  the 
manager  brought  guests  through  the  shop  he  used 
to  switch  off  the  power  and  walk  away  from  his 
machine — ''bad  enough  to  have  to  work  in  a  fac- 
tory anyhow  without  being  put  on  exhibition  do- 
ing it ! "  It  was  this  sensitiveness  to  all  subordi- 
nation which  became  the  basis  for  his  later  revolu- 
tionary theories ;  and  it  is  this,  he  claims,  which  is 
the  real  driving  force  in  the  minds  of  the  leaders 
of  the  extremist  movements.  The  sensitiveness  of 
those  who  always  ''feel  too  distinctly"  that  they 
are  under  someone  is  very  near  the  core  of  the 
conscious   theories   of   control.     The   feeling   of 


THE  DEMAND  FOR  CONTROL  33 

servility  in  subordination  to  the  employer's 
authority  is  the  leading  note  in  shop  steward  prop- 
aganda. This  is  what  makes  the  bitterness  that 
runs  through  Mr.  J.  T.  Murphy's  pamphlets: — 

"Why  are  men  and  women  servile^to  directors,  man- 
agers, and  foremen?  Why  do  men  dodge  behind  ma- 
chines and  in  lavatories  to  smoke  while  the  employers 
can  and  do  stroll  through  the  shops  smoking  cigars? 
.  .  .  Why  do  men  and  women  work  long  hours  and 
show  all  the  characteristics  of  subjection  to  the  em- 
ployers if  the  latter  do  not  possess  a  power  over  them? 
.  .  .  The  workers  show  all  the  characteristics  of  a  sub- 
ject people  when  in  contact  with  the  employers."^" 

Mr.  Straker  is  a  labor  leader  of  quite  different 
temper,  but  the  same  feeling  of  resentment  that 
the  worker  should  be  **  merely  at  the  will  or  direc- 
tion of  another  being"  "  appears  again  and  again 
in  his  testimony  before  the  Coal  Commission.  The 
following  passage  is  typical: — 

"Q.  I  notice  that  you  lay  considerable  stress  in  your 
precis  upon  this  idea  that  under  the  pre-war  system  the 
workmen  were  in  what  they  called  a  servile  position :  do 
you  really  seriously  put  that  forward? 

Mr.  Straker.  I  do.  .  .  .  It  is  always  a  servile  posi- 
tion when  men  are  almost  entirely  under  the  control  of 
another. "  '* 

•*  Compromise  or  Independence?     See  Note  on  Sources. 
"  Coal   Commission    Evidence,   Question   23116.     See    Note   on 
Sources. 
"  Questions  23433,  23434. 


34  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

A  resentment  against  the  whole  system  of  con- 
trol in  industry,  a  resentment  constantly  fed  by 
irritation  at  particular  cases  of  clumsily-exercised 
control,  is  a  genuine  and  distinct  factor  in  the 
demands  of  labor. 

It  may  still  be  pointed  out  that  all  this  is  merely 
a  negative  resentment  against  control  and  not 
specifically  a  positive  demand  for  control.  This 
distinction  may  seem  like  an  attempt  to  cut  be- 
tween things  never  separated  in  practice,  but  it 
is  not  merely  a  quibble.  The  desire  to  be  let  alone, 
to  be  free  from  the  irksomeness  of  control  by 
others,  is  not  identical  with  the  desire  to  co-oper- 
ate actively  in  the  work  of  controlling.  The  ''will 
to  be  responsible  for  oneself"  does  not  automati- 
cally resolve  itself  into  the  will  to  take  part  in 
representative  government.  The  question  of  how 
far  and  under  what  conditions  the  one  passes  over 
into  the  other  is  a  highly  important  practical  point. 
Men  might  be  ungovernable  by  authority  without 
being  thereby  ready  to  govern  themselves. 

The  demand  for  personal  freedom  within  in- 
dustry is  not  identical  with  the  demand  for 
political  power  within  industry ;  the  one  begins  as 
a  desire  for  no  government,  the  other  is  a  desire 
for  a  share  in  self-government.  How  much  of  the 
latter  is  there  in  the  present-day  control  demand? 
Clearly  it  is  a  less  vocal  part.  The  roots  and 
beginnings  of  the  control  demand  are  in  the  felt 


THE  DEMAND  FOR  CONTROL  35 

irksomeness  of  the  present  system  of  control,  not 
in  a  conscious  desire  for  a  new  field  of  activity.  I 
heard  a  group  of  Derbyshire  miners  thrashing  out 
the  problem.  *' Supervision  is  nauseous."  On 
that  they  heartily  agreed.  ''But  supervision  is 
necessary."  Yes,  if  only  for  safety.  Then  one  of 
the  men  suggested  that  there  might  be  another 
sort  of  supervision — ''amicable  discipline"  he 
called  it — in  which  the  supervisors  should  be 
elected  by  and  responsible  to  the  workers.  It  is 
apparently  in  some  such  way  as  this  that  the 
positive  demand  arises.  Mr.  Frank  Hodges  is 
almost  alone  in  putting  the  demand  for  responsi- 
bility— for  the ' '  daily  exercise  of  directive  ability" 
— in  the  forefront  of  the  claim  for  control.  Little 
direct  evidence  of  the  reality  of  this  demand  can 
be  taken  from  industry  itself.  What  interest  the 
ordinary  workman  may  have  had  in  running  things 
or  in  managing  men  has  had  to  be  satisfied  out- 
side of  industry  if  at  all.  Evidence  from  the  few 
firms  that  have  experimented  with  the  "devolu- 
tion of  managerial  functions ' '  is  conflicting.  Some 
report  an  almost  pathetic  pleasure  over  consulta- 
tion on  very  minor  matters,®^  some  a  real  interest 
in  general  policy,  some  a  refusal  to  take  responsi- 
bility. Perhaps  a  better  judgment  of  the  interest 
of  workers  in  "running  things"  might  be  formed 
from  a  study  of  their  organizing  activities  outside 

••  Cf.,  p.  191. 


36  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

the  workshop, — the  Trade  Union  Movement  itself, 
with  the  remarkable  series  of  experiments  and 
failures  and  successes  in  devising  forms  of 
organization  which  make  (or  should  make) 
the  two  great  books  of  the  Webbs  books  for  the 
political  scientist;  the  Co-operative  Movement, 
with  what  D.  F.  Schloss  called  **its  power  to  pro- 
mote the  organization  upon  democratic  lines  of 
the  working  classes  by  the  working  classes";  the 
Dissenting  Chapels,  in  regard  to  which  Mrs.  Webb 
wrote  of  *'the  debt  which  English  democracy 
owes  to  the  magnificent  training  given  by  Protes- 
tant Dissent  in  the  art  of  self-government;"  the 
national  and  local  work  of  the  Labor  Party;  and 
so  on.  The  question  runs  beyond  the  scope  of  the 
present  study.  The  extent  and  range  of  working 
class  organizations  may  be  put  on  one  side,  the 
poor  attendance  at  trade  union  meetings  ^*  and  the 
low  percentage  of  votes  cast  on  important  trade 
union  ballots  on  the  other.  Some  organizing  in- 
terest is  surely  "there,"  in  the  shop  steward's 
phrase ;  the  important  question  is  really  whether 
or  not  it  will  be  turned  inwards  upon  industry  it- 
self. 

These  demands  that  bear  directly  upon  the  ques- 
tion of  authority  are  of  the  highest  importance 
in  a  study  of  the  control  problem.    Control  is  a 

•* "  To  get  an  attendance  of  70  to  100  out  of  a  branch  member- 
ship of  300  to  1000  is  a  sign  of  stirring  times,  or  of  unemploy- 
ment," says  Mr.  J.  T.  Murphy. 


THE  DEMAND  FOR  CONTROL  37 

political  ^^  word.  The  demands  previously  studied 
are  not  primarily  political;  they  are  concerned 
with  the  control  of  industry  not  as  an  end  but  as 
a  possible  means,  and  they  might  conceivably  be 
satisfied  without  changes  in  workshop  politics. 
But  the  "political"  demands  now  under  discus- 
sion are  concerned  more  nearly  with  control  for 
its  own  sake ;  their  chance  of  satisfaction  depends 
directly  ^^  upon  the  type  of  industrial  government. 
These  "political"  demands  may  be  phrased  as 
the  demand  not  to  he  controlled  disagreeably,  the 
demand  not  to  he  controlled  at  all,  and  the  demand 
to  take  a  hand  in  controlling.  The  first  runs 
through  all  trade  union  activity.  The  second  is 
less  widespread.  The  conscious  general  resent- 
ment is  vastly  less  than  the  sum  of  particular  irri- 
tations, but  it  is  the  powerful  driving  passion  of 
the  control  agitation.  The  third — the  desire  for 
a  share  in  the  job  of  running  things — is  real  but 
less  immediate. 

The  force  of  these  freedom  demands  is  hard 
to  measure.  Apparently  they  run  as  an  under- 
current in  many  of  labor's  campaigns  on  other 
issues.  It  is  impossible  to  judge  the  extent  to 
which  a  vague  and  uneasy  sense  of  oppression 


*' "  Political,"  that  is,  in  the  wide  sense  of  concerned  with  au- 
thority relationships ;  not  "  political "  in  the  narrow  sense  of 
relating  to  the  authority  of  the  State  of  territorial  unit. 

"  Except  in  so  far  as  the  organizing  interest  is  drawn  off  into 
non-industrial  channels. 


38  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

adds  to  the  bitterness  and  determination  with 
which  apparently  trivial  disputes  are  fought.  It 
is  by  now  a  commonplace  "  to  say  that  the  occa- 
sion or  formulated  issue  of  a  strike,  as  of  a  war, 
is  only  a  part  of  its  cause  or  of  the  emotions  that 
are  called  out;  surely  a  part  of  the  emotion  that 
gathers  around  any  industrial  struggle  is  that  of 
servant  against  master.  It  is  in  this  sense  that  Mr. 
Straker  calls  **the  straining  of  the  will  of  man  to 
be  free"  the  root  cause  of  labor  unrest.  And  it 
is  the  linking  of  this  feehng  with  the  economic 
motive  that  makes  ** wage- slavery"  a  powerful 
phase  for  propagandists  to  conjure  with. 

These  political  factors  are  rightly  thought  of 
as  the  essential  part  of  the  demand  for  control. 
Possibly  they  are  not  the  strongest  part  of  the 
demand,  but  they  are  the  part  least  likely  to  be 
diverted  from  the  issue  of  the  government  of  in- 
dustry. They  are  the  core  of  the  demand;  the 
other  motives  may  in  various  circumstances  be 
added  unto  it. 

The  worker's  interests  in  the  work  itself — in 
what  he  actually/  does,  in  the  technical  processes 
of  industry — have  also  important  bearings  on  the 
control  problem.  Cannan's  analysis  of  the  resent- 
ment against  control  includes  both  "political"  and 

•^  Thanks  in  part  to  the  work  of  the  late  Carleton  Parker. 


THE  DEMAND  FOR  CONTROL  39 

technical  factors.  The  ''feeling  when  you  are  told 
to  do  what  you  know,  or  think  you  know,  to  be  the 
wrong  thing,"  is  surely  a  workmanlike  distaste 
for  inefficiency.  The  technical  interests  are  often 
grouped  under  the  one  term  worktnanship  '®;  it  is 
safer  to  discuss  them  simply  as  interests  in  the 
job. 

The  interest  usually  mentioned  first  under  this 
head  is  craftsmanship,  the  feeling  of  the  indi- 
vidual craftsman  toward  his  own  particular  bit  of 
skilled  technique.  And  the  first  thing  that  is 
usually  said  about  it  is  that  it  is  dead  or  at 
least  dying  out.^®  Certainly  the  long  run  effects 
of  the  transition  from  handicraft  to  modern  ma- 
chine industry  bear  heavily  in  that  direction.  '  *  In 
the  technique  of  handicraft  the  central  fact  is 
always  the  individual  workman."  On  the  other 
hand,  *'the  share  of  the  operative  workman  in  the 
machine  industry  is  (typically)  that  of  an  atten- 
dant, an  assistant,  whose  duty  it  is  to  keep  pace 
with  the  machine  process  and  to  help  out  with 
workmanlike  manipulation  at  points  where  the 
machine  process  is  incomplete."*"  Crafts  and 
craftsmanship  are  clearly  going  down  together 


"  Cf.  especially  Thornstein  Veblen,  The  Instinct  of  Workman- 
ship. 

'•"The  worst  indictment  of  capitalism,"  one  ex-joiner  told  me 
with  unexpected  bitterness. 

*'  The  Instinct  of  Workmanship,  pp.  234,  806.  The  last  two 
chapters  of  the  book  are  a  discussion  of  the  institutional  bearings 
of  this  technological  change. 


40  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

before  the  advance  of  fool-proof  machinery  and 
standardized  industry. 

But  it  is  much  too  early  to  count  off  craftsman- 
ship as  a  genuine  force  in  industry.  Nor  is  it 
strictly  true  to  say  that  it  survives  only  in  the 
tiny  remaining  handicrafts  or  only  in  the  trades 
mentioned  in  Section  XIX  under  the  topic  of 
"old  craft  control."  Even  in  the  great  industry 
there  are  occasional  indications  of  craftsmanship 
— though  no  propagandist  movement  is  finding  it 
worth  while  to  bring  together  evidence  on  the 
point.  The  best  signs  of  it  are  in  fact  those  that 
come  out  incidentally  in  the  course  of  discussions 
on  other  subjects — such  as  the  use  by  a  certain 
skilled  joiner  of  his  own  dexterous  hands  as  the 
basis  for  his  social  theories,*^  the  use  by  an  en- 
gineering trades  official  of  "cutting  a  micrometer 
scale ' '  as  the  type  of  something  that  required  real 
skill,  or  the  following  passage  on  rate-fixing  from 
the  Ministry  of  Labor's  report  on  Works  Com- 
mittees : — 

**A  discussion  that  starts  about  the  price  of  a  job 
often  finishes  by  two  men  staking  their  reputations  as 
craftsmen  and  their  experience  as  workmen  that  they 
are  absolutely  right. ' ' 

I  have  even  heard  an  engineering  shop  steward 
confess  to  a  certain  pride  in  the  skill  of  the  craft 
whose  special  privileges  he  was  attacking. 

*'"  Human  hands  too  valuable"  to  be  used  for  "donkey  work." 


THE  DEMAND  FOR  CONTROL  41 

Craftsmanship  is  still  a  force,  though  a  dimin- 
ishing one.  In  relation  to  the  control  demand  it 
cuts  two  ways.  It  is  a  conservative  factor  in  the 
resistance  of  the  old  crafts  against  ''encroach- 
ments" upon  their  ancient  forms  of  control.*''  It 
moreover  is  an  element  in  stiffening  the  demand 
not  to  be  controlled.  The  true  craftsmen  will 
stand  very  little  supervision  in  regard  to  his  own 
technique.  The  glass  bottle  maker  will  not  work 
under  a  manager  who  is  not  trained  as  a  glass 
bottle  hand.  '  'I  know  how  to  do  my  job  and  won't 
be  told  how" — this  was  quoted  as  almost  the  cen- 
tral element  in  the  demand  not  to  be  controlled. 
Pride  in  craft  skill  may  often  make  a  part  of  that 
independence  which  resists  irksome  control. 

But  craftsmanship  seems  to  cut  just  the  other 
way  in  relation  to  the  positive  side  of  the  control 
demand.  The  old  craft  unions  are  completely  in- 
different to  the  newer  ''political"  demands.  The 
craftsman  may  be  quick  to  resent  interference  with 
his  own  work,  but  he  is  not  likely  to  bother  about 
organizing  activities  very  far  outside  that  work. 
"The  artist,  the  craftsman,  the  scholar  and  the 
scientist  have  one  overpowering  desire;  to  be  let 
alone,"  writes  Mr.  Arthur  Gleason.  "They 
haven't  the  slightest  wish  to  run  anything  or  any- 
body, to  manage,  to  'know  the  commercial  side,'  to 
market    the    product    or    to    control    the    raw 

"  See  below.  Section  XIX. 


42  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

material."  It  is  true  that  some  of  the  control 
propaganda — notably  that  of  one  school  of  Guild 
Socialists — runs  in  terms  of  a  return  to  crafts- 
manship; but  the  immediate  program  of  workers' 
control  is  a  program  of  opportunities  for  political 
activity  within  large-scale  industry.  If  Professor 
Wallas  is  at  all  right  in  making  ''concentration 
on  what  he  can  see  and  touch"  the  essential 
characteristic  of  the  craftsman,*'  it  is  no  use  for 
National  Guildsmen  to  talk  arts  and  crafts  and  at 
the  same  time  to  point  to  the  Miners'  Federation 
of  Great  Britain  and  the  National  Union  of  Rail- 
waymen  as  promising  steps  "Towards  National 
Guilds."  Craftsmanship  has  no  direct  connection 
with  representative  government.  By  its  concen- 
tration on  the  immediate  and  highly  individual 
skill  it  runs  counter  to  the  general  organizing 
interest  which  makes  up  the  positive  side  of  the 
demand  to  exercise  control,  biit  by  the  very  pride 
in  that  individual  skill  it  stiffens  the  refusal  to  be 
controlled. 

So  much  for  the  relation  of  craftsmanship  to 
control.  But  the  chances  of  interest  in  the  work 
for  the  work's  sake  do  not  end  with  individual 
manual  craftsmanship.  The  enthusiastic  manag- 
ing director  of  a  great  engineering  firm  may  have 
as  keen  an  interest  in  the  process  of  production  as 
any  Swiss  wood  carver.    Large-scale  ' '  social  pro- 

**  Graham  Wallas,  The  Great  Society,  p.  4. 


THE  DEMAND  FOR  CONTROL  43 

duction"  has  to  a  great  extent  taken  the  place 
of  individual  production.  With  it  have  come  a 
set  of  interests  in  the  technique  of  group-organi- 
zation as  well  as  in  the  technique  of  individual 
work.  Collective  workmanship  might  serve  as  a 
general  term  for  them,  but  the  interests  covered 
would  run  from  an  interest  in  the  routing  of  work 
in  a  particular  shop  to  an  interest  in  the  governing 
and  lay-out  of  great  industrial  enterprises.  Some 
of  these  feelings — that  of  the  individual  in- 
ventor,** for  example,  or  the  pride  in  a  great  in- 
dustry,*^ or  the  queer  generalized  pride  in  being 
"practical  men"*"  and  ''industrialists" — ^bear 
only  indirectly  on  the  demand  for  control.  At 
least  one  interest,  the  pride  in  a  particular  firm's 
workmanship — ^Wedgwood's  in  the  Potteries  is 
one  of  a  few  cases — ^may  run  counter  to  the  con- 
trol demands.  But  certain  of  these  interests  in 
collective  work  appear  directly  as  part  of  the 
control  demand. 

The  most  conspicuous  of  these  is  the  demand 
for  the  right  to  make  suggestions  about  the  con- 
duct of  the  work.  Of  the  reality  of  this  interest 
there  is  abundant  evidence.*^    A  foreman  in  one  of 


"But  cf.,  pp.  217-219. 

"  But  note  the  use  of  the  pride  in  "the  industry  as  a  national 
service"  in  the  Buildin?  Trades  Parliament. 

*•  It  would  be  amusing  to  count  the  number  of  times  this 
phrase  is  used,  both  by  employers  and  workers,  in  a  year's  crop 
of  arbitration  proceedings  and  blue  books  on  labor  problems. 

*'See  Section  XVI. 


44  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

the  National  Factories  *^  was  telling  me  how  the 
management  had  encouraged  suggestions  both 
from  the  foremen's  and  the  workers'  committees. 
*'It  isn't  only  the  big  wages,"  he  declared  em- 
phatically. **The  men  like  to  have  their  ideas 
taken  up. ' '  In  discussing  the  demand  for  control 
with  a  group  of  Derbyshire  miners,  I  found — to 
my  surprise — that  this  was  the  issue  on  which  they 
showed  the  greatest  interest.  One  man  got  up 
and  declared: — 

"There  isn't  a  man  in  this  room  who  hasn't  time  and 
again  made  suggestions  and  been  told  he  was  paid  not 
to  think  but  to  work." 

The  evening  turned  into  a  sort  of  testimony 
meeting  in  which  the  men  related  different  specific 
suggestions  that  they  had  made,  and  the  next 
noon  the  colliery  blacksmith  stopped  me  on  the 
road  to  explain  to  me  how  he  thought  his  company 
might  use  compressed  air  more  efficiently,  and  sa 
on.  This  interest  in  making  suggestions — and  the 
strong  feeling  that  the  chance  to  make  them  is 
blocked  under  the  present  type  of  industrial  gov- 
ernment— are  real  factors  in  the  demand  for  con- 
trol. 

The  interest  in  making  suggestions,  moreover, 
can  hardly  be  separated  from  the  interest  in  see- 
ing those  suggestions  put  into  force.    It  is  in  fact 

*'  Munition  plants  run  directly  by  the  Government. 


THE  DEMAND  FOR  CONTROL  45 

only  a  special  form  of  a  general  interest  in  the 
running  of  modem  industry.  Various  traces  of 
an  interest  in  the  technical  efficiency  of  industry 
may  be  found  in  labor  feeling.  There  is  at  least  a 
certain  negative  interest,  a  disgust  with  various 
sorts  of  inefficiency.  Evidence  is  hard  to  collect 
since,  as  a  building  trades  union  official  remarked, 
most  of  the  discussions  of  workmen  on  a  job  about 
the  inefficiency  of  their  employers  can  find  no 
outlet  in  the  form  of  suggestions.*^  One  of  the 
Derbyshire  miners  just  quoted  talked  of  being 
''told  to  do  the  silliest  things  imaginable."  A 
Clyde  shop  steward  told  me  that  a  disgust  with 
the  inefficiencies  of  management  was  always  there 
for  the  agitator  to  ''play  on" — evidence  the 
more  interesting  because  the  object  of  the  agita- 
tion was  certainly  not  to  stir  up  technical  interest. 
How  widespread  this  sense  of  irritation  with  in- 
efficiencies in  organization  may  be,  it  is  impossible 
to  say.  Its  clearest  expression  is  in  the  complaints 
of  the  Miners,  enforced  by  trade  union  power, 
against  inefficiencies  in  the  arrangements  for 
haulage,  etc.""  Nor  does  this  interest  always  re- 
main merely  negative.  There  are  even  cases  of 
the  urging  of  positive  changes  in  organization. 
This  is  shown  in  the  elaborate  schemes  of  the 


'•See  Section  XVI   for  the  results  in  a  few  cases  where  an 
otitlet  has  been  provided. 
"See  Section  XV. 


46  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

Post  Office  Workers  for  extending  the  financial 
side  of  the  postal  service,  of  which  one  of  their 
leaders   speaks  as  follows: — 

* '  The  workers  want  to  take  part  in  the  administration 
of  the  Department.  For  years  past  they  have  proffered 
suggestions  whereby  the  public  could  be  better  served 
and  the  services  more  efficiently  organized  and  man- 
aged, but  they  have  been  turned  down." 

It  is  shown  in  the  detailed  suggestions  on  the 
technique  of  the  industry  presented  to  the  Coal 
Commission  by  the  Miners'  Federation.  What 
Justice  Sankey  called  the  Miners'  "higher  am- 
bition of  taking  their  due  share  and  interest  in 
the  direction  of  the  industry,"  is,  as  he  realized, 
of  great  significance.  It  marks  the  appearance 
of  the  managing  and  planning  interest  as  a  definite 
factor  in  the  control  demand. 

Workmanship  in  this  most  general  sense  is  an 
idea  that  has  run  through  part  of  the  propaganda 
of  workers'  control  ever  since  the  agitation  of 
1911.  One  of  Mr.  Mann's  followers  declared  that 
year : — 

"I  for  one  believe  we  have  yet  to  see  good  work,  and 
that  will  be  when  work  is  made  pleasant  and  attractive, 
well  organized  by  capable  men,  who  will  have  been 
elected  by  their  mates.  ...  I  understand  Syndicalism 
is  to  use  some  of  its  efforts  at  making  the  worker  take 
a  vital  interest  in  the  industry  he  is  connected  with, 


THE  DEMAND  FOR  CONTROL  47 

thereby  preparing  him  for  the  democratic  control  of 
the  industrial  community  of  the  future." 

The  most  comprehensive  statement  of  the  work- 
manship part  of  the  demand — and  one  that  adds 
to  it  the  demand  for  knowledge  about  large-scale 
industry — is  given  in  Mr.  Straker's  testimony 
before  the  Coal  Commission  on  March  13,  1919 : — 

"Any  administration  of  the  mines,  under  nationaliza- 
tion, must  not  leave  the  worker  in  the  position  of  a  mere 
wage-earner,  whose  whole  energies  are  directed  by  the 
will  of  another.  He  must  have  a  share  in  the  manage- 
ment of  the  industry  in  which  he  is  engaged,  and  un- 
derstand all  about  the  purpose  and  destination  of  the 
product  he  is  producing;  he  must  know  both  the  pro- 
ductive and  the  commercial  side  of  the  industry.  He 
must  feel  that  the  industry  is  being  run  by  him  in 
order  to  produce  coal  for  the  use  of  the  community, 
instead  of  profit  for  a  few  people.  He  would  thus  feel 
the  responsibility  which  would  rest  upon  him  as  a  citi- 
zen, and  direct  his  energies  for  the  common  good. 

This  ideal  cannot  be  reached  all  at  once,  owing  to 
the  way  in  which  private  ownership  has  deliberately 
kept  the  worker  in  ignorance  regarding  the  industry; 
but  as  that  knowledge  which  has  been  denied  him  grows, 
as  it  will  do  under  nationalization,  he  will  take  his  right- 
ful place  as  a  man.  Only  then  will  labor  unrest,  which 
is  the  present  hope  of  the  world,  disappear." 

This  explicit  plea  for  the  chance  of  workmanship 
is  the  demand  of  a  few.    When  Mr.  Ben  Turner, 


48  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

the  veteran  leader  of  the  Textile  Workers,  put  the 
question  at  the  Trades  Union  Congress; — ''Why 
shouldn't  they  sing  at  their  work?"  the  cheers 
were  more  out  of  pleasure  in  his  personality  than 
from  any  very  definite  notion  of  work  that  might 
be  worth  singing  about.  The  Right  of  Workman- 
ship is  not  carried  as  a  motto  on  the  street  banners 
of  the  labor  movement. 

These  various  interests  in  the  job  tie  back  to 
all  the  other  factors  of  the  control  demand.  A 
striking  case  of  the  substitution  of  the  workman- 
ship for  the  wage  motive  has  already  been  men- 
tioned. The  last  statement  quoted  from  Mr. 
Straker's  evidence  is  one  of  many  that  show  the 
blending  of  the  public  service  and  workmanship 
interests.  The  relations  between  the  freedom  and 
workmanship  demands  are  even  more  central  to 
the  control  problem.  Craftsmanship  has  already 
been  spoken  of  as  strengthening  the  objection  to 
being  controlled,  and  surely  all  forms  of  work- 
manship fortify  what  Mr.  Cole  calls  * '  the  natural 
impulse  we  all  feel  to  push  aside  anyone  whom  we 
see  doing  badly  what  we  can  do  better."  The 
feeling  of  inferiority  which  deepens  the  bitterness 
of  the  agitation  for  control  is  in  part  a  feeling  of 
functional  inferiority.  It  is  impossible  to  separate 
the  ''organizing  interest"  spoken  of  as  the  posi- 
tive side  of  the  "political"  demand  from  the 
interests  in  organizing  industry  just  discussed. 


THE  DEMAND  FOR  CONTROL  49 

In  fact  it  is  just  where  the  two  are  one  that  the 
control  demand  is  the  clearest.  The  general 
interest  in  organization  becomes  directly  impor- 
tant for  control  only  when  it  is  turned  to  the  organ- 
izing of  industry ;  the  general  interests  in  industry 
become  directly  important  for  control  only  as  they 
become  organizing  interests.  In  a  list  of  the 
nucleus  elements  of  the  demand  for  control — 
those  elements,  that  is,  that  can  hardly  be  diverted 
from  the  issue  of  the  control  of  industry — it  is 
necessary  to  put  with  the  ''political"  factors  of 
the  determination  of  workers  not  to  he  run  and 
their  desire  to  rum  things  the  ** workmanship" 
addition  that  it  is  industry  that  workers  want  to 
run.  This  is  indeed  implied  in  the  quotation  which 
began  this  introduction.  Mr.  Straker,  it  is  true, 
states  the  demand  in  terms  of  ''the  straining  of 
the  will  of  men  to  be  free ; ' '  but  he  has  more  than 
once  explained  that  he  means  by  that  not  merely 
a  negative  freedom  but  a  positive  freedom,  a  free- 
dom to  do  something.  The  content  of  his  idea  of 
freedom  is  in  fact  workmanship.  It  would,  I 
think,  be  fair  to  his  position  to  rephrase  it  as 

follows : — ■ 

I 
Wages  and  conditions  are  not  enough.  They  have 
been  improved  and  the  unrest  is  still  strong.  Mere 
negative  freedom  from  harsh  discipline  is  not  enough. 
That  tjifi  Northumberland  Miners  have  long  been  able 
to  secure  and  the  unrest  is  still  strong.    The  root  of  the 


50  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

matter  is  a  demand  for  a  pasitive  freedom  of  responsi- 
bility a/nd  self-expression. 

But  such  a  clear-cut  claim  for  control  is  the  claim 
of  a  tiny  minority.  Most  of  the  driving  force  of 
the  movement  comes  from  other  motives,  and  no 
single  statement  can  pretend  to  express  all  the 
confused  strivings  that  make  up  the  total  demand. 
The  whole  of  this  introduction  makes  only  a  be- 
ginning at  describing  its  complexity.  The  actual 
demand  for  control  is  a  tangle  of  half -expressed 
and  shifting  and  richly  varied  desires.  That  is,  it 
is  a  human  phenomenon. 

It  is  a  dogma  in  the  somewhat  Early  Christian 
faith  of  the  Clyde  shop  stewards  that  "the  fer- 
ment creates  its  own  organization. "  It  is  at  least 
''ferment"  that  makes  ''organization"  interest- 
ing. And  it  is  the  ferment  of  the  demand  for 
control  that  makes  worth  while  a  patient  study 
of  the  present  extent  of  control. 


A   STUDY   IN   BRITISH   WORKSHOP 
POLITICS 


CONTROL 

There  is  a  theory  current  that  the  employer  does 
and  should  exercise  something  that  is  known  as 
''complete  executive  control"  over  industry. 
There  are  other  theories  current  that  the  organ- 
ized workers  should — sooner  or  later,  and  more 
or  less  completely — take  over  ''the  control  of 
industry."  Workshop  politics  are  forcing  them- 
selves into  first  place  in  social  politics,  and  the 
workshop  conflict  represented  by  these  ideas  is 
perhaps  the  most  significant  fact  in  the  social 
politics  of  the  day.  This  study  is  an  attempt  to 
make  a  record  of  the  present  stage  of  the  conflict 
in  Great  Britain  in  terms  of  the  questions : — What 
is  the  present  extent,  and  what  are  the  boundaries, 
of  workers'  control?  How  much  control  of  in- 
dustry do  the  British  workers  now  exercise? 

But  "control"  over  what?  The  term  is  used 
by  the  contestants  in  the  struggle  in  an  undefined 
but  somewhat  specialized  sense.  When  one  of  the 
coal-owners  on  the  Coal  Commission  asked  one 

51 


B!^  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

of  the  Miners'  Executive  what  they  meant  when 
they  said  they  wanted  control,  and  the  answer 
was: — '*We  mean  just  what  you  mean  when  you 
say  we  must  not  have  control,"  they  were  using 
a  term  an  outsider  might  well  try  to  define  for 
himself. 

''Complete  executive  control"  might  mean, 
among  other  things,  that  the  employer  "by  his 
absolute  knowledge  and  mere  motion"  provides 
capital,  decides  what  to  produce  and  how  to  pro- 
duce it,  provides  any  sort  of  place  to  work,  hires 
whom  he  likes,  pays  his  hands  any  wages  by  any 
system,  works  them  any  number  of  hours  he  likes, 
drives  them  by  any  method  and  with  any  degree 
of  supervision,  promotes,  fines,  or  dismisses  them 
for  any  cause,  trains  any  hand  for  any  job,  dic- 
tates every  process  in  the  minutest  detail — and 
does  all  this  and  more  "subject  to  change  without 
notice."  But  the  most  cursory  acquaintance  with 
industry  or  a  glance  at  a  few  typical  collective 
agreements  shows  that  the  employer  ^  has  no  such 


*  The  use  of  the  phrase  "  the  employer  "  is  not  meant  to  imply 
that  all  employers  are  alike  either  in  personality  or  in  their 
position  in  industry.  But  the  differences  between  employers, 
great  as  they  are,  are  comparatively  unimportant  in  the  present 
connection  since  they  are  not  usually  expressed  in  differences  of 
the  extent  of  control  they  leave  to  their  employees.  The  popular 
distinction  between  "  good "  and  "  bad "  employer  is  of  no  use 
for  the  present  purpose, — except  in  so  far  as  the  "  bad  "  employer 
may  arouse  his  employees  to  devise  means  of  controlling  him,  or 
as  the  "good"  employer  may  also  happen  to  believe,  in  Mr. 
Seebohm  Rowntree's  phrase,  in  "giving  as  much  control  as  he 
can  instead  of  as  little  as  he  must." 


CONTROL  53 

control  as  this.  The  real  question  is  how  much 
less  does  he  mean  by  ''complete  executive  control." 
There  is  after  all  such  a  thing  as  a  trade  union 
and,  as  Professor  Commons  says,  ''If  it  cannot 
prevent  the  employer  from  doing  as  he  pleases  at 
some  point  or  other,  it  is  something  besides  a 
trade  union."  But  the  question  is,  which  points? 
What  matters  have  been  recognized  as  subjects 
for  consultation,  at  least,  rather  than  employer's 
fiat? 

First  and  most  obviously,  wages  and  hours. 
The  "wage  bargain"  has  always  been  in  the  eyes 
of  the  law  a  bargain  between  equals.  The  primary 
function  of  the  trade  union  has  been  to  restore 
to  this  contract  some  degree  of  real  equality. 
These  are  of  course  the  questions  on  which  the 
workers  now  exercise  their  most  important  share 
of  control. 

In  the  second  place,  some  of  the  more  obvious 
physical  "conditions  of  employment" — ^ventila- 
tion, sanitary  arrangements,  and  works  conven- 
iences generally — have  also  long  been  subject 
both  to  collective  bargaining  and  Factory  Act 
legislation. 

Neither  of  these  things,  though,  is  control  in 
the  sense  that  either  a  fighting  employer  or  a 
propagandist  of  "workers'  control"  would  use 
the  term.  An  employer's  control  over  industry 
is  not  destroyed  by  the  fact  that  he  has  to  buy 


64  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

labor  with  much  the  same  equality  in  bargaining 
that  he  buys  other  factors  in  production.  And 
matters  of  toilets  and  air  space  and  welfare  work 
are  after  all  not  vital  to  absolute  power  over  the 
actual  organization  of  production. 

The  question  of  ''control"  arises  beyond  the 
immediate  contract  of  so  many  hours  or  so  many 
pieces  of  work  for  so  much  pay,  and  beyond  the 
obvious  physical  "conditions  of  employment,"  in 
the  debatable  ground  where  regulating  the  "con- 
ditions of  employment"  appears  from  another 
point  of  view  to  be  actual  sharing  in  the  organiza- 
tion of  industry.  The  object  of  the  present  study 
is  to  find  out  how  much  control  the  workers  have 
over  matters  that  are 

(1)  Less  immediate  to  the  "wage  bargain"  it- 

self than  Rates  of  Wages  and  Hours  of 
Labor. 

(2)  More  immediate  to  the   "actual  business 

of  production"  than  Ventilation,  etc. 
What  degree  of  control  do  the  trade  unions 
exercise  over  the  relations  of  man  to  man  in  indus- 
try—  the  employment  and  discipline  relationships ; 
and  over  the  relations  of  man  to  the  work  itself — • 
to  the  plans,  processes,  and  technique  of  industry! 
How  much  say  have  the  workers  over  what  the 
boot  manufacturers  once  called  "the  internal 
economy  of  the  workshop  and  the  manipulation  of 
the  workman  by  the  employer?" 


CONTROL  65 

The  first  and  obvious  answer  is — directly  and 
explicitly,  very  little.  A  longer  and  more  critical 
answer  requires  study  and  analysis  of  collective 
agreements  and  arbitration  awards,  of  trade  union 
regulations,  of  jealously  guarded  shop  practices 
and  customs  of  the  trades,  of  the  issues  of  strikes, 
and  of  the  demands  of  the  revolutionary  minority. 

In  theory  trade  union  rules  rarely  extend  beyond 
the  ** conditions  of  employment"  in  the  sense  of 
the  famous  definition  of  the  Webbs  of  a  trade 
union  as  "a  continuous  association  of  wage-earn- 
ers for  the  purpose  of  maintaining  or  improving 
the  conditions  of  their  employment. ' '  ^  But  it  is 
at  least  worth  a  study  of  such  "conditions"  as  the 
non-unionist,  apprenticeship  and  demarcation 
questions;  the  various  expedients  for  meeting 
unemployment;  discipline,  dismissals  and  the 
handling  of  grievances ;  promotion  and  the  choice 
and  authority  of  foremen;  methods  and  payment 
and  the  measurement  of  results;  restrictions  on 
technique;  consultation  over  change  in  technique 
and  over  trade  policy,  etc.,  to  determine  to  what 
extent  they  involve,  in  fact  if  not  in  form,  trade 
union 

(1)  interference  with 

(2)  consultation  over 

(3)  direction  of 

the  actual  organization  of  industry. 
•  History  of  Trade  Unioimm,  p.  1.    See  Note  on  Sources. 


n 

THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

** Workers'  control"  is,  I  suppose,  often  trans- 
lated as  ''interfering  with  the  employer's  busi- 
ness." A  definite  notion  of  the  meaning  attached 
to  the  latter  phrase  would  be  of  use  in  finding  the 
fighting  frontier  of  control.  Where  does  the 
issue  come  into  the  open?  At  what  point  does 
the  employer  say — ^beyond  this  there  shall  be  no 
discussion,  the  rest  is  my  business  alone?     The 

line  is  a  hard  one  to  draw;  the  issues  are  rarely 

• 

thought  out  in  the  abstract  and  rarely  presented 
dramatically.  The  real  frontier,  like  most  lines  in 
industry,  is  more  a  matter  of  accepted  custom 
than  of  precisely  stated  principle.  In  a  few  in- 
stances, however,  there  have  been  definite  at- 
tempts to  stake  out  the  boundary,  evidently  as 
results  of  disputes  in  which  the  principle  became 
explicit. 

There  are  for  example  a  number  of  collective 
agreements  ^  that  attempt  to  define  the  ''Authority 
of  Employers ' '  in  such  terms  as  these : — 

"Each  employer  shall  conduct  his  business  in  any 
way  he  may  think  advantageous  in  all  details  of  man- 

*  Report  on  Collective  Agreements.    See  Note  on  Sources. 

56 


THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL  57 

agement,  not  infringing  on  the  individual  liberty  of  the 
workman  or  these  rules."  (Liverpool  Carpenters  and 
Joiners.) 

"Each  employer  shall  have  the  power  to  conduct  his 
business  in  any  way  he  may  think  advantageous  in  the 
matter  of  letting  work,  taking  apprentices,  using  ma- 
chinery and  implements,  and  in  all  details  of  manage- 
ment not  infringing  these  rules."  (Birmingham  Brick- 
layers.) 

**That  Dressers  shall  not  interfere  in  any  way  what- 
ever with  the  management  of  workshops."  (Scottish 
Steel  Dressers.) 

"The  right  of  the  Association  to  organize  its  equip- 
ment and  to  regulate  its  labor  with  a  view  to  the  lowest 
cost  of  production."     (Bradford  Dyers  Association.) 

The  most  famous  of  these  declarations  of  the 
employers'  authority  was  the  Engineering  Trades 
Agreement  signed  in  1898  after  a  great  and  un- 
successful strike.  This  declared  under  the  head 
of  *' General  Principle  of  Freedom  to  Employers 
in  the  Management  of  their  Works, ' '  that : — 

"The  Federated  Employers,  while  disavowing  any 
intention  of  interfering  with  the  proper  functions  of 
Trade  Unions,  wiU  admit  no  interference  with  the  man- 
agement of  their  business.  .  .  .  Employers  are  re- 
sponsible for  the  work  turned  out  by  their  machine 
tools,  and  shall  have  full  discretion  to  appoint  the  men 
they  consider  suitable  to  work  them,  and  determine  the 
conditions  under  which  such  machine  tools  shall  be 
worked." 


68  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

In  addition  to  these  attempts  to  define  positively 
the  borderline  of  control  there  are  a  number  of 
agreements  which  define  it  negatively  by  setting 
aside  questions  which  are  not  matters  for  discus- 
sion. Certain  questions,  they  say,  are  questions 
.for  bargaining  or  arbitration;  certain  questions 
are  vital  and  reserved  to  the  employer.  It  is  worth 
while  to  mention  a  few  of  these  non- justiciable 
questions  of  industry.  The  Pottery  arbitration 
agreement  which  preceded  the  present  Joint 
Industrial  Council  ruled  out  the  two  questions  of 
**Good  from  Oven"  (deduction  from  wages  for 
broken  pots)  and  "Limitation  of  Apprentices." 
A  Liverpool  Dockers  agreement  provides  "that 
the  Union  shall  not  interfere  with  the  methods  of 
working  cargo  on  ships  or  quay."  Leicester  Boot 
and  Shoe  arbitration  arrangements  provide  that 
"no  Board  shall  interfere  with  the  right  of  an 
employer  to  make  reasonable  regulations  for  time- 
keeping and  the  preservation  of  order  in  his  fac- 
tory or  workshop."  The  last  rule  of  a  pioneer 
"Works  Committee  in  the  woollen  industry  reads : 

"It  is  understood  and  agreed  that  it  is  the  business 
of  the  management,  and  is  not  the  business  of  the  Con- 
ference to  deal  with: — 

(a)  The  allocation  of  work  to  particular  sets  of 

drawing. 

(b)  The  allocation  of  winders  to  particular  ma- 

chines. ' ' 


THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL  59 

More  typical,  however,  are  provisions  such  as  the 
following : — 


"Questions  of  discipline  and  management  not  to  be 
interfered  with."     (London  Motor  Bus  Employees.) 

Under  questions  to  be  discussed: — "Differences  relat- 
ing to  general  conditions  of  labor  (not  being  questions 
of  discipline  and  management)."  (London  County 
Council  Tramways.) 

Arbitration  on  "any  question  other  than  one  which 
he  [the  arbitrator]  shall  decide  to  relate  to  manage- 
ment and  discipline."  (Bobbin  Turners,  etc.,  at  Garton 
and  Coverholme.) 


The  phrase  *' discipline  and  management"  has 
been  made  most  prominent  by  its  appearance  in 
the  remarkable  succession  of  railway  crises.  Dur- 
ing the  ** all-grades  movement"  of  1907,  which 
turned  on  the  issue  of  union  recognition,  Mr. 
-Robert  Bell,  the  Secretary  of  the  Railway  Serv- 
ants, was  ''on  all  occasions  most  emphatic  in 
denying  that  it  was  the  desire  of  the  men's  execu- 
tive committee  to  interfere  with  the  discipline  of 
the  railway  staffs,"  while  Lord  Claud  Hamilton 
(who  wanted  his  men  **to  be  free  and  independent 
as  subjects  of  a  Constitutional  Monarch")  and 
other  railway  directors  were  firm  in  their  **  abso- 
lute refusal  to  allow  the  society  to  interfere  in  our 
domestic  relations  with  our  staff."    The  Concilia- 


60  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

tion  Boards,  set  up  in  that  year  as  Mr.  Lloyd 
George's  solution  of  the  difficulty,  were  expressly 
limited  to  the  consideration  of  "rates  of  wages 
and  hours  of  labor."  By  the  time  of  the  railway 
strike  of  1911,  the  attitude  of  the  men  was  changed. 
When  their  leaders  testified  before  the  Royal 
Commission  of  that  year,  they  were  no  longer 
willing  to  repeat  the  absolute  denial  of  an  interest 
in  discipline.  Mr.  J.  H.  Thomas  in  fact  argued 
that,  ''the  common  sense  of  two  parties  meeting 
in  a  representative  capacity  is  more  likely  to  arrive 
at  a  right  decision  than  through  one  side's  taking 
up  the  attitude  that  it  is  purely  a  question  for 
them  to  determine.  .  .  .  The  men  are  distinctly  of 
opinion  that  all  questions  ought  to  be  discussed 
and  settled  by  the  Board. ' '  The  Commission,  how- 
ever, reported  that  "with  their  great  responsibili- 
ties the  companies  cannot  and  should  not  be  ex- 
pected to  permit  any  intervention  between  them 
and  their  men  on  the  subjects  of  discipline  and 
management ; ' '  and  by  the  1911  scheme,  although 
the  companies  are  to  receive  deputations  on  "any 
questions  affecting  the  contractual  relations  be- 
tween the  company  and  its  employees,"  the 
Boards  themselves  are  limited  to  consideration  of 
"rates  of  wages,  hours  of  labor,  or  conditions  of 
service,  other  than  matters  of  management  and 
discipline."  Since  that  time  the  last  clause  has 
been  the  storm  center  of  the  industry^  and  the  dis- 


THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL  61 

satisfaction  with  it  is  now  expressed  in  a  demand 
for  nationalization  with  joint  control  by  the 
workers  and  the  State. 

''Discipline  and  management,"  then,  has  often 
summed  up  the  issue  of  control.  The  phrase  would 
perhaps  most  often  be  used  by  an  employer  to 
describe  the  issues  over  which  he  would  refuse  to 
share  control.  And,  from  the  other  side,  the 
president  of  the  National  Union  of  Railwaymen 
declares  that,  ''it  is  in  the  fierce  questions  of  dis- 
cipline and  management,"  that  his  union  has 
found  its  soul. 

But  when  one  has  said  that  discipline  and  man- 
agement are  the  crux  of  the  control  problem,  one 
is  not  very  far  along.  The  phrase  almost  disap- 
pears under  analysis.  The  specific  issues  that 
have  come  under  what  the  Railway  Review  calls 
"the  symbols  D  and  M"  include  such  things  as 
dismissals,  promotions,  classification  of  employees, 
a  doubtful  safety  regulation,  etc.  The  Steel  Dres- 
sers agreement  quoted  above  goes  on  to  include 
under  the  reservations  to  management  the  alloca- 
tion of  work  between  classes  of  workmen.  The 
Engineering  agreement  put  in  the  same  category 
the  selection,  training,  and  employment  of  opera- 
tives and  the  right  to  pay  according  to  ability. 
And  in  1907  the  Railway  Gazette  even  argued 
that  if  wages  and  hours  were  "fixed  by  two  dif- 
ferent bodies"  {i.e.  by  negotiation  with  a  union) 


^       th;e  FRt)¥rriEii  op  control 

sm  impossible  ' ''dtia^lity  of  ^anagetnelat  ^wmld 
arise  1"  But  ^11  tkese  q^aestiofis  have  of  course 
been  subjects  for  <collesc!tive  bargaining  in  other 
trades. 

Oaa  the  other  hand,  there  are  many  cases  of  what 
an  outsider  would  surely  call  consultation  over 
''management"  into  which  the  disturbing  word  or 
idea  never  enters.  The  employment  manager  for 
an  employers*  association  told  me,  for  example, 
that  various  works  committees  in  his  trade  found 
themselves  discussing  such  matters  as  the  reason 
why  on  a  given  morning  there  was  no  work  ready 
for  the  piece  workers.  If  anyone  had  suggested 
that  that  was  a  question  of  ** management,"  of  the 
actual  arranging  of  production,  the  employers 
would  doubtless  have  closed  the  discussion.  But 
to  everybody  concerned  it  seemed  merely  the  ques- 
tion of  how  to  make  sure  that  the  piece  workers 
should  find  work  at  starting  time. 

Discipline  and  management,  then,  are  conve- 
nient terms  for  the  frontier  of  control.  But  that 
frontier  must  be  looked  for  as  a  shifting  line  in  a 
great  mass  of  regulations  in  regard  to  which  the 
question  of  control  may  never  have  arisen.  The 
material  in  this  section,  then,  is  interesting  only 
as  indicating  a  few  of  the  cases  in  which  the  issue 
of  control  has  been  fought  consciously,  in  which 
the  frontier  of  management  has  seemed  to  its 
defenders  a  hard  chalk  line. 


in 

EMPLOYMENT 

The  employer  is  sometimes  spoken  of  as  the 
man  who  finds  jobs  for  workers.  But  to  what  ex- 
tent do  the  trade  unions  determine  which  jobs  are 
found  for  which  workers  1  To  what  extent  do  the 
trade  unions  possess  what  D.  F.  Schloss  called  the 
''power  of  rejecting  as  fellow  workers  persons 
who  appear  to  them  to  be  undesirable  compan- 
ions ? " 

An  obvious  limitation  on  the  employer's  control 
under  this  head  is  the  tendency  of  any  strong 
union  to  reject  non-unionists  as  fellow-workers. 
The  employer's  right  and  practice  of  keeping 
union  members  out  and  employing  only  non-union- 
ists has  practically  gone  by  the  board  in  Great 
Britain,  if  not  in  America.  The  issue  now,  where 
there  is  an  issue,  is  whether  the  employer  shall  be 
permitted  to  employ  any  but  unionists.  The  na- 
tural intensity  of  feeling  on  this  point  is  best  ex- 
pressed by  a  comparison  made  by  the  shrewd 
secretary  of  an  employers '  association  of  the  non- 
unionist  to  the  conscientious  objector,  or  by  the 
following  extract  from  a  form  letter  drafted  by  a 


64  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

Railwaymen's  district  council  to  be  sent  to  the 
wives  of  non-unionists: — 

"Dear  Madam, 

Do  you  know  your  husband  is  in  receipt  of  a  War 
Bonus,  which  the  members  of  the  N.  U.  R.  have  worked 
and  paid  for,  and  he  has  done  nothing  except  to  act 
like  the  young  birds  in  a  nest  and  take  what  others 
have  struggled  hard  to  get?  " 

It  is  difficult  to  measure  the  exact  extent  to  which 
union  membership  has  become  a  necessary  condi- 
tion of  employment.  Two  or  three  great  indus- 
tries, certain  skilled  trades  within  other  indus- 
tries, and  a  few  old  crafts  are  practically  * 'black- 
leg-proof. ' '  ^  Coal-mining  is  the  nearest  approach 
to  a  completely-unionized  great  industry.  The 
Miners'  Federation  of  Great  Britain  claims  just 
under  99%  of  the  underground  workers,  exclud- 
ing officials,  and  95%  of  the  surface  workers;  and 
of  the  remainder  many  are  organized  in  other 
unions.^  In  certain  collieries  the  management 
itself  collects  the  union  dues  by  deducting  from 
the  men's  pay  and  receives  a  percentage  for  its 
pains;  and  there  are  even  instances  of  successful 
strikes  against  the  employment  of  men  in  arrears 
to  the  union.  In  cotton  there  is  practically  no 
opening  for  the  non-unionist  on  the  spinning  side 

* "  Blackleg "  is  the  British  trade  unionist's  equivalent  for  the 
American  trade  unionist's  expression  "  scab." 

*  Coal  Commission  Evidence,  Question  23635  et  teq.    . 


EMPLOYMENT  65 

of  the  industry,  at  least  in  Lancashire,  and  very- 
little  in  weaving.  The  Boilermakers  have  long 
claimed  95%  organization  and  the  other  skilled 
shipbuilding  unions  are  in  practically  the  same 
position.  The  remarkable  growth  of  the  National 
Union  of  Kailwaymen  and  the  Eailway  Clerks' 
Association  has  made  the  railways  stand  very 
high  in  percentage  of  unionists.  In  the  wool  in- 
dustry the  Dyers  claim  a  100%  organization,  and 
their  agreement  with  the  Bradford  Dyers'  Asso- 
ciation provides  that  **any  employee  ceasing  to  be 
a  member  of  any  of  the  Unions  shall  be  required 
by  the  Association  to  resume  membership  of  one 
or  other  of  the  Unions. ' '  The  Huddersfield  Dyers 
and  the  Bradford  Woolcombers  work  under  sim- 
ilar arrangements.  Such  old  crafts  as  the  Glass 
Bottle  Makers,  Flint  Glass  Makers  and  Hand 
Papermakers  are  almost  completely  unionized,  as 
well  as  such  small  skilled  sections  of  larger  indus- 
tries as  the  Stuff  Pressers  (wool).  Lithographic 
Printers,  Calico  Printers  and  Tape  Sizers  (cot- 
ton). Other  industries — ^probably  most  industries 
— vary  widely  in  this  regard  from  district  to  dis- 
trict or  from  shop  to  shop.  In  the  Manchester  dis- 
trict, for  example,  the  painters  have  a  closed-shop 
agreement  (though  only  with  the  organized  em- 
ployers) and  the  other  building  trades  are  push- 
ing for  it;  in  many  parts  of  the  country  these 
trades  are  very  imperfectly  organized.    In  engi- 


66  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

neering,  with  a  higli  total  percentage  of  union 
membership,  the  enforcement  of  the  closed  shop 
condition  varies  entirely  with  the  strength  in  the 
various  works  of  a  given  town.  In  printing, 
although  the  union  compositors  refuse  to  work 
except  in  **fair  houses"  {i.e.  all-union),  rival  **rat 
houses"  continue  to  flourish;  and  the  London  So- 
ciety of  Compositors  wages  a  continual  campaign 
to  make  sure  that  all  public  contracts  go  to  the 
former  class  of  firms.  In  many  industries,  of 
course,  and  particularly  in  the  distributive  trades, 
there  are  hardly  the  beginnings  of  compulsory 
unionism. 

From  the  point  of  view  of  our  question  about 
control,  this  enforcing  of  union  membership  is 
interesting  chiefly  as  a  basis  for  extensions  of 
control  to  issues  more  closely  bound  up  with  the 
actual  processes  of  production.  The  same  is  true 
of  the  custom  of  using  the  trade  unions  as  employ- 
ment exchanges.  This  is  usually  merely  a  matter 
of  obvious  convenience  to  both  parties,  without 
any  thought  of  control.  The  man  out  of  work  goes 
to  his  union  oflBce  to  sign  the  '  *  call  book"  and  draw 
his  out-of-work  pay ;  the  employer  naturally  sends 
there  to  find  him.  The  union  secretary  will  prob- 
ably boast  that  his  office  is  a  better  employment 
agency  for  his  own  trade  than  the  public  one — or 
possibly  fear  or  despise  the  public  exchanges  as 
blackleg  agencies — ^but  that  is  about  all  it  comes  to. 


EMPLOYMENT  67 

More  interesting,  however,  are  cases  wliere  the 
union,  in  the  interest  of  fairness  between  its  mem- 
bers or  for  other  reasons,  makes  some  regulation 
as  to  which  men  shall  be  hired  first.  The  "Eules 
Governing  Calls"  of  the  London  Society  of  Com- 
positors provide : — 

"All  calls  for  workmen  received  at  the  Society  House 
shall  be  given  to  the  members  whose  names  appear  first 
on  the  list,  ..." 

"Employers,  overseers,  or  their  agents  may  choose 
workmen  from  the  list  irrespective  of  the  position  in 
which  their  names  appear  on  the  book ;  but  the  members 
so  chosen  may,  if  they  think  fit,  refuse  such  employment, 
unless  of  those  present  they  are  first-  in  order  on  the 
book." 

The  workman  may  look  for  work  on  his  own  account, 
but  "any  member  intercepting,  in  the  street  or  else- 
where, a  messenger  with  a  call  that  is  intended  for  the 
Secretary,  shall  be  dealt  with  by  the  Committee  as  they 
may  determine." 

Many  unions  advise,  and  in  some  cases  require, 
their  members  to  consult  the  union  secretary  be- 
fore applying  for  a  job  in  order  to  make  sure  that 
conditions  are '  *  fair. ' '  An  adaptation  of  this  prin- 
ciple is  the  claim  of  the  Sailors'  and  Firemen's 
Union,  denied  in  1911  but  granted  for  the  duration 
of  the  war  with  the  setting  up  in  1914  of  the  Na- 
tional Maritime  Board,  that  representatives  of  the 
union  ''be  present  when  men  sign  on." 


68  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

The  rules  of  this  Maritime  Board  also  estab- 
lished the  principle  of  "  a  single  source  of  supply 
jointly  controlled  by  employers  and  employed." 
An  important  further  extension  of  control  is  the 
requirement  that  the  employer  must  hire  exclu- 
sively through  the  union  or  at  least  give  the  union 
first  chance  to  provide  a  man.  The  agreement  in 
the  China  Furniture  trade — where  the  employers 
and  employed  combine  to  keep  up  prices — ^pro- 
vides : — 

"The  Operatives'  Association  shall  undertake  to  pro- 
vide at  all  times  for  a  due  supply  of  efficient  workpeople, 
so  that  the  business  of  Members  of  the  [IManufacturers'J 
Association  may  in  no  way  be  hindered.  Should  the  sup- 
ply of  workmen  fall  below  the  number  required,  the 
Wages  Board  shall  at  once  take  into  consideration  the 
best  way  of  remedying  the  evil." 

The  Bradford  Dyers'  Association  agreement  of 
July  1, 1914,  reads : — 

"The  Association*  shall  on  the  engagement  of  em- 
ployees first  make  application  to  the  unions  to  supply 
the  employees  required.  The  unions  shall  supply  em- 
ployees with  the  least  possible  delay,  and  if  the  unions 
do  not  supply  employees  satisfactory  to  the  Association 
within  24  hours  of  receipt  of  a  requisition  in  writing 
from  the  Association,  the  latter  shall  be  free  to  engage 
persons  who  are  not  members  of  the  unions,  but  such 

*  A  trust  not  an  association  of  independent  firms. 


EMPLOYMENT  69 

persons  shall  be  required  by  the  Association  forthwith  to 
become  members  of  one  or  other  of  the  unions." 

This  last  system,  together  with  the  method  of 
collective  piece  work  provided  for  by  the  same 
agreement,  has  an  interesting  by-product  in  trade 
union  responsibility  for  technique.  The  members 
of  the  National  Society  of  Dyers  are  supposed  to 
be  able  to  perform  all  the  processes  of  the  trade ; 
if,  however,  their  secretary  has  to  send  to  an  em- 
ployer a  man  who  has  had  no  experience  in  the 
particular  process  for  which  he  is  wanted,  he 
sends  at  the  same  time  a  note  to  the  shop  steward  * 
so  that  the  others  will  ''pull  him  through." 

The  Stuff  Pressers,  a  small  and  highly  skilled 
craft  within  the  wool  industry,  are  by  far  the  most 
striking  example  of  trade  union  regulation  of  em- 
ployment. With  them  the  ''  staffing  of  shops"  is 
entirely  the  function  of  the  union.  The  method 
is  described  by  a  member  in  the  Organiser  of 
April,  1918:— 

' '  The  success  of  the  union  is  further  demonstrated  by 
its  methods  of  dealing  with  trade  depression  and  slack- 
ness of  shops.  The  experience  gained  in  this  direction 
during  the  past  ten  years  has  been  invaluable.  .  .  .  To- 
day the  Pressors'  Society  has  a  travelling  man  power,  a 

*  "  Shop  steward  "  as  used  here  means  merely  a  representative 
of  organized  workers  within  a  particular  shop  or  works.  The 
term  is  most  widely  used  in  the  engineering  industry;  "constable" 
and  "  father  of  the  chapel "  are  parallel  terms  in  printing.  The 
"shop  stewards'  movement"  has  already  been  discussed. 


70  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

small  but  efficient  body  of  skilled  men  who  are  ready- 
to  respond  to  any  call  that  the  demand  might  make. 
This  mobile  reserve  has  contributed  largely  to  the  solu- 
tion of  the  unemployment  problem  [in  an  industry  of 
marked  fluctuations  in  trade]  .  .  .  The  method  of  choos- 
ing men  is  usually  by  the  request  for  volunteers  from  the 
shops.  If  the  voluntary  principle  is  ineffective,  the 
shop  resorts  to  the  ancient  method  of  'picking  out  of 
the  bag'.  .  .  .  The  success  of  the  scheme  can  be  gauged 
from  the  fact  that  the  Society  has  not  had  an  unemployed 
member  for  nearly  five  years." 

It  is  worth  noting,  in  reference  to  the  relation 
of  100%  unionism  to  other  forms  of  control,  that 
the  writer  goes  on  to  say  that,  '  *  the  principle  of 
the  mobility  of  labor  .  .  .  owes  its  success  to 
the  fact  that  the  Society  is  practically  blackleg 
proof."  This  is,  I  am  sure,  the  instance  of  most 
complete  actual  control  over  the  finding  of  jobs. 
In  this  case  it  apparently  grew  up  without  any 
conscious  theory,  certainly  without  any  public 
propaganda.  The  theorists  of  control,  however, 
have  not  completely  neglected  the  possibilities  of 
the  control  of  labor  supply  as  a  basis  for  the 
control  of  industry.  The  Engineering  and  Ship- 
building Draughtsmen,  whose  journal  talks  much 
of  ''status"  and  ''control,"  voted  in  March,  1919, 
to  secure  for  their  Association,  as  soon  as  possible, 
a  monopoly  over  employment  quite  consciously 
as  a  "new  and  formidable  engine  of  control." 
And  Messrs.  Gallecher  and  Paton,  of  the  Clyde  en- 


i 


EMPLOYMENT  71 

gineering  shop  stewards,  in  their  Memorandum  on 
Workshop  Control,  suggest  for  their  District 
Committee  both  the  '* skilful  manipulation"  of 
labor  supply  as  a  weapon  for  immediate  fighting 
purposes  and  the  ultimate  function  under  full 
workers '  control  of  ' '  the  effective  and  economical 
distribution  of  labor.'" 


IV 
UNEMPLOYMENT 

The  last  paragraph  of  the  preceding  section 
shows  how  the  problem  of  employment  becomes 
the  problem  of  unemployment.  Here  we  might 
well  expect  to  find  real  trade  union  attempts  at 
the  organization  of  industry,  for  the  question  is  of 
much  more  pressing  importance  to  the  union  than 
to  the  employer.  The  difference  in  immediate 
economic  interest  is  this: — ^the  employer  is  inter- 
ested in  finding  men  for  jobs;  the  union  is  inter- 
ested in  finding  jobs  for  men — interests  ''iden- 
tical ' '  only  in  busy  seasons.  In  fact  the  employer's 
bargaining  power  increases  directly  with  the  size 
of  the  "reserve  army"  of  unemployed.  In  slack 
seasons  the  unions  are  faced  with  this  danger  to 
their  standard  as  well  as  the  necessity  of  support- 
ing their  own  members  * '  on  the  funds. ' '  This  is 
only  another  way  of  saying  that  the  fear  of  unem- 
ployment is  a  ruling  motive  both  for  the  individual 
workman  and  for  his  trade  organizations.  ''Want 
or  uncertainty  of  employment  for  the  industrial 
classes,"  is  still  what  William  Thompson  called  it 
in  1830 — a  "master-evil  of  society  as  now  con- 
stituted. '  * 

72 


UNEMPLOYMENT  78 

The  principle  expressed  in  most  trade  union 
attempts  to  meet  tlie  problem  is  a  simjDle  one — 
that  no  one  should  have  more  work  than  he  needs 
until  all  have  as  much  as  they  need.  ' '  They  want 
to  ration  employment  so  that  all  will  have  their 
proper  share."  {Strike  Bulletin,  Clyde,  Febru- 
ary 8,  1919.) 

The  simplest  arrangements,  usually  found  in 
the  less  important  trades,  are  those  for  the  shar- 
ing of  work.  The  Webbs  give  us  the  most  primi- 
tive instance  the  "Turnway  Societies"  of  Thames 
watermen  for  regulating  the  ''turns"  of  work. 
The  London  Corn  Porters  provide  for  equaliza- 
tion of  work  by  ''rotation  of  gangs."  A  reflec- 
tion of  quarrels  under  this  head  is  the  following 
agreement  reached  by  the  tailors  after  the  strike 
of  1892:— In  reference  to  the  trade  union  rule 
that  provides  that  "during  slack  seasons  a  fair 
equitable  division  of  trade  should  be  compulsory 
in  all  shops, ' '  the  employers,  after  stipulating  that 
this  did  not  necessarily  mean  ' '  distribution  of  the 
work  in  turns,"  stated  that  "we  fully  recognize 
that  the  work  ought  to  be  fairly  shared  during  the 
slack  season  in  harmony  with  the  above,  and  we 
urge  upon  our  members  throughout  the  country 
to  carry  these  principles  into  effect."  And  in  1903 
the  Scottish  Master  Tailors  stated,  "that  in  quiet 
seasons  they  used  their  own  discretion  as  at  all 
other  times  in  giving  the  work  to  such  work  people 


74  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

as  they  consider  best  capable  of  turning  it  out; 
but  the  principle  of  job  about  shall  be  recog- 
nized." Perhaps  the  most  drastic  regulation  is 
that  enforced  by  the  highly  monopolistic  York- 
shire Glass  Bottle  Makers : — 


"In  the  event  of  any  furnace  being  out  for  repair, 
slack  trade  or  stopped  from  any  other  cause,  the  work- 
men shall  be  allowed,  so  far  as  practicable,  to  share 
work — provided,  nevertheless,  that  after  a  furnace  has 
been  out  for  four  months  the  master  can  discharge  the 
surplus  workmen. ' ' 


Many  restrictions  against  overtime  are  based 
partly  on  this  principle.  The  general  question  of 
overtime,  in  its  important  bearings  on  the  standard 
of  leisure  and  the  payment  of  extra  wages,  is 
beyond  the  present  inquiry ;  but  so  far  as  it  bears 
on  the  equalization  of  work,  it  is  of  interest  here. 
The  weakly-organized  Garment  Workers,  who  are 
subject  to  busy  seasons  of  constant  overtime  and 
slack  seasons  of  wholesale  dismissals,  are  press- 
ing for  the  complete  abolition  of  overtime  as  a 
means  of  forcing  the  employers  to  take  steps  to 
prevent  or  minimize  seasonal  fluctuations.  A  1919 
agreement  in  the  Making-up  Clothing  trade  in 
London  provides  for  avoidance  of  overtime.  The 
same  principle  is  evident  in  a  Boilermakers' 
agreement  covering  the  South  Wales  ports : — 


UNEMPLOYMENT  75 

"No  member  .  .  .  shall  work  more  than  one  whole 
night  or  two  half  turns  as  overtime,  in  addition  to  the 
usual  working  days  ...  in  any  one  week,  whilst  coitu 
petent  men  are  idle  in  the  port,  except  on  finishing  jobs 
which  can  be  completed  in  not  exceeding  three  hours' 
labor.  If  more  overtime  be  required  on  particular  jobs, 
such  overtime  must  he  given  to  the  unemployed  members 
in  the  town"  (italics  mine). 

A   rule  proposed   by   the   Manchester   building 
trades  unions  puts  the  demand  briefly : — 

"No  overtime  to  be  worked  in  any  branch  of  the 
Building  Industry  whilst  any  men  in  that  branch  of  the 
industry  and  district  are  unemployed." 

Organized  short  time  is  the  most  familiar  pallia- 
tive for  unemployment.  There  is,  says  Professor 
Bowley  {An  Elementary  Manual  of  Statistics,  p. 
151),  ''a  group  of  industries  in  which  certainly 
more  than  two  million  persons  are  employed,  in 
which  it  is  the  custom  to  regulate  the  working 
week  in  relation  to  the  demand  for  the  product, 
employing  nearly  the  same  number  of  persons  in 
good  trade  and  in  bad,  but  working  short  time 
when  the  market  becomes  overstocked  .  .  . 
Coal-mining  is  the  most  conspicuous  industry  of 
this  group.  The  textile  trades  (cotton,  wool,  and 
others)  organize  employment  with  a  similar  re- 
sult; short  time  is  worked,  or  the  work  is  spread 
out  among  the  operatives,  when  the  demand  is 


76  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

slack ;  but  the  great  number  of  those  employed  in 
moderately  busy  times  draw  some  wages  nearly 
every  week."  The  ''pound  stint"  was  a  similar 
pre-war  expedient  in  pottery.  In  most  cases  these 
arrangements  are  based  on  the  convenience  of  the 
employers  as  well  as  of  the  employed  or  on  tacitly- 
accepted  ''custom  of  the  trade,"  rather  than  on 
trade  union  insistence.  They  are  interesting  for 
the  present  purpose  as  the  basis  of  experience 
from  which  have  come  two  conscious  movements 
toward  control, — the  one  toward  the  use  of  short 
time  against  reductions  of  pay  on  account  of  over- 
production, best  illustrated  by  the  ' '  Miners '  Four 
Days"  and  the  great  cotton  dispute  of  1878  (see 
Section  XVIII  below) ;  the  other  the  extensive 
propaganda  for  shortening  hours  to  absorb  the 
unemployed.  The  last  idea  has  been  behind  many 
of  the  demands  for  shorter  hours  made  since  Mr. 
Tom  Mann's  speaking  tour  in  1911.  The  Miners' 
claim  for  the  six  hour  day  was  urged  partly  on 
this  ground;  and  the  "40-hour  movement"  in  en- 
gineering, which  boiled  over  in  the  Clyde  and  Bel- 
fast strikes  early  in  1919  and  is  simmering  in  the 
other  districts,  is  based  on  this  theory.  "They 
have  come  into  the  strike  to  abolish  unemploy- 
ment, ' '  said  the  Clyde  Strike  Bulletin.  This  is  an 
item  in  the  current  propaganda  of  the  shop 
stewards'  movement,  though  one  at  least  of  its 
leaders  thinks  that,  even  after  they  had  won  their 


UNEMPLOYMENT  77 

30  or  40-liour  week  and  absorbed  the  present  crop 
of  unemployed,  they  would  "never  have  to  go 
back."  The  most  workmanlike  attempt  to  write 
into  an  actual  agreement  this  notion  of  reducing 
hours  to  meet  unemployment  is  in  the  proposed 
new  rules  for  the  Coventry  district  of  the  engi- 
neering industry: — 

"When  the  unemployed  list  reaches  2^%  [of  the 
union  membership],  the  above  hours  shall  be  reduced 
by  one  hour  per  week,  and  if  5%  of  unemployment  is 
reached  the  hours  shall  be  reduced  by  2(^  hours  per 
week.  If  more  than  5%  are  at  any  time  unemployed, 
the  unions  reserve  the  right  to  take  any  reduction  of 
hours  they  consider  necessary." 

It  is  no  longer  true  that,  as  the  Webbs  stated  in 
1897,  "wisely  or  unwisely,  the  Trade  Unions  have 
tacitly  accepted  the  principle  that  the  capitalist 
can  only  be  expected  to  find  them  wages  so  long 
as  he  can  find  them  work. "  In  a  number  of  trades, 
there  has  been  a  movement  toward  forcing  the 
employer  to  make  it  his  business  to  regularize 
work  or,  failing  that,  to  "make  unemployment 
[that  is,  the  maintenance  of  the  unemployed]  a 
charge  on  the  industry. ' '  In  its  simplest  form  this 
is  merely  an  objection  on  the  part  of  a  number  of 
trade  unions  to  the  practice  of  keeping  their  mem- 
bers waiting  without  pay  at  the  employer's  con- 
venience on  the  chance  that  work  may  be  found 


78  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

for  them.  The  demands  put  forward  in  October, 
1919,  by  the  National  Union  of  Railwaymen  and 
the  Transport  Workers  Federation  on  behalf  of 
the  coal- tippers  include  the  provision: — 

**A11  men  shall  be  paid  waiting  time  at  the  rate  of 
2/6d.  per  mail  per  hour  or  part  of  an  hour  in  all  eases. ' ' 

Various  unions  have  been  able  to  establish  the 
principle  of  guaranteed  time, — that  is,  that  if  a 
worker  is  hired  at  all  he  must  be  assured  a  full 
day's  or  week's  work  or,  failing  that,  full  pay  for 
the  period.  The  Manchester  Carters  won  in  1911 
an  agreement  that  ''all  carters  employed  at  or 
before  9  a.  m.  shall  be  paid  a  day's  pay."  The 
Boot  and  Shoe  agreement  of  February  13,  1919, 
contains  an  elaborate  stipulation  that  with  certain 
exceptions,  ''where  operatives  attend  at  the  fac- 
tories on  the  instruction  of  the  employers  .  .  . 
work  shall  be  found  for  them  for  at  least  half  a 
day  ...  or  they  shall  be  paid  ...  at  not  less  than 
the  minimum  or  agreed  wage  rate."  A  rule  pro- 
posed by  the  Manchester  building  trades  unions 
reads : — 

"Six  hours  per  day  shall  be  the  minimum  time  paid 
to  men  who  attend  on  the  job  up  to  9  a.m.  and  remain 
on  the  job  during  the  day,  or  until  told  by  the  manage- 
ment they  may  leave." 

The  Compositors  on  the  London  newspapers  have 
daily  guarantees  of  at  least  two  galleys  (approxi- 


UNEMPLOYMENT  79 

mately  7  hours'  work).  The  Glass  Bottle  Makers 
have  a  guaranteed  weekly  rate  or,  in  some  districts, 
the  guarantee  of  enough  metal  to  allow  them  to 
make  the  weekly  rate.  Of  the  other  old  crafts,  the 
Hand  Papermakers  are  guaranteed  **six  days' 
custom"  and  the  Flint  Glass  Makers  ^'eleven 
moves  a  week"  (33  hours) .  Finally,  the  first  item 
in  the  terms  of  settlement  with  the  National  Union 
of  Railwaymen  in  March,  1919,  reads : — 

"The  standard  week's  wages,  exclusive  of  any  over- 
time or  Sunday  duty,  to  be  guaranteed  to  all  employees 
who  are  available  for  duty  throughout  the  week." 

Guaranteed  time  by  the  day  or  week  has  been  a 
definite  part  of  trade  union  policy.  A  further  ex- 
tension of  the  idea  is  guaranteed  time  all  the  year 
round.  This  is  what  is  meant  by  the  phrase  ''un- 
employment a  charge  on  the  industry"  which  Mr. 
B.  Williams  (The  First  Year's  Working  of  the 
Liverpool  Docks  Scheme)  explains  as  follows: — 

"If  a  reserve  of  labor  is  required  by  any  industry, 
then  that  industry  should  maintain  that  reserve  not 
only  when  working,  but  also  when  it  is  unavoidably  un- 
employed." 

The  idea  does  not  necessarily  involve  any  ele- 
ment of  workers'  control.  Mr.  Williams  was  writ- 
ing from  the  viewpoint  of  a  government  official, 
and  in  at  least  one  case  responsibility  toward  its 


80  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

unemployed  has  been  assumed  by  a  powerful 
trust.  The  Bradford  Dyers'  Association  agreed 
in  1907,  ''that  to  the  men  displaced  from  any  cause 
whatever  during  the  year  the  Association  shall 
pay  an  amount  equal  to  and  in  addition  to  that 
paid  under  their  out-of-work  benefit  by  the  So- 
ciety." But  the  most  important  experiment  in 
this  direction — that  of  the  Cotton  Control  Board 
during  the  war — was  much  more  to  the  present 
point.  It  involved  both  partial  trade  union  re- 
sponsibility for  the  policy  of  the  scheme  and  com- 
plete trade  union  responsibility  for  administration 
of  the  unemployment  benefit.  The  lack  of  ship- 
ping, due  to  the  submarine  campaign  and  the  di- 
version of  tonnage  to  war  purposes,  had  caused 
an  acute  shortage  of  raw  cotton  and  widespread 
unemployment  in  the  industry.  The  Cotton  Con- 
trol Board,  with  representatives  of  the  Board 
of  Trade,  the  cotton  merchants  and  manufac- 
turers, and  the  cotton  trade  unions,  was  estab- 
lished in  June,  1917,  with  broad  powers  to 
deal  with  the  emergency.  There  were  two  main 
problems  to  be  considered: — the  allocation  to 
the  various  manufacturers  of  their  share  of 
the  limited  supply  of  material,  and  the  provision 
for  the  maintenance  of  the  unavoidably  unem- 
ployed. The  first  problem  was  dealt  with  by  fixing 
the  purchase  price  of  raw  cotton  and  by  allowing 
manufacturers  to  run  only  certain  percentages  of 


UNEMPLOYMENT  81 

their  machinery.  To  meet  the  unemployment 
problem,  a  fund  was  created  by  a  levy  upon  the 
manufacturers  who  exceeded  their  percentage  of 
machines;  this  fund  was  used  as  unemployment 
pay  under  principles  laid  down  by  the  Control 
Board;  its  actual  administration,  both  to  union 
members  and  to  the  few  non-unionists,  was  left 
solely  (with  the  trifling  exception  of  a  few  out- 
lying villages)  to  the  trade  unions.  For  a  part  of 
the  first  year  of  the  Control  Board's  work  and 
during  the  sharpest  crisis,  the  industry  ran  on 
what  was  called  the  ''rota*'  system — work  for  four 
weeks  and  the  fifth  week  a  holiday  with  pay  pro- 
vided by  this  levy  upon  the  industry;  this  was 
finally  given  up  in  order  that  the  surplus  labor 
might  be  drained  off  to  the  making  of  munitions ; 
but  the  general  policy  of  making  necessary  unem- 
ployment a  charge  on  the  industry  was  maintained 
throughout  the  war.  The  importance  of  the  work 
of  the  Cotton  Control  Board  as  a  case  in  which 
trade  union  representatives  shared,  at  least  nomin- 
ally, in  the  determining  of  trade  policy  will  be 
discussed  in  Section  XVIII.  Its  importance  for 
the  present  subject  lies  not  only  in  its  actual  steps 
for  meeting  unemployment  but  in  the  partial  con- 
trol by  the  workers  in  planning  those  steps  and  in 
their  complete  control  over  a  part  of  the  adminis- 
tration. 
It  will  be  noticed,  however,  that  even  the  most 


82  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

elaborate  of  these  expedients,  except  perhaps  the 
little  flying  squadron  of  Stuff  Pressers,  are  di- 
rected toward  the  end,  not  of  decreasing  irregu- 
larity of  employment  but  merely  of  distributing 
more  equally  the  incidence  of  its  hardships.  If 
there  is  any  effect  on  the  reducing  of  the  fluctua- 
tions themselves,  it  is  only  the  indirect  but  impor- 
tant one  of  making  it  worth  the  employer's  while 
to  plan  to  that  end.  In  general  the  problems  of 
** business  cycles"  and  the  like  have  been  left  as 
obviously  beyond  the  reach  of  what  little  control 
the  trade  unions  have  secured  over  industry. 

It  is  the  more  interesting,  then,  to  examine  the 
few  instances  in  which  the  trade  unions  have  taken 
a  part  or  an  interest  in  attempts  at  the  regular- 
izing of  employment  as  distinct  from  the  mere 
mitigation  of  the  evils  of  unemployment.  Attempts 
to  regularize  employment  may  be  divided  into 
those  which  begin  from  the  end  of  regularizing 
the  supply  of  labor  and  those  which  begin  from 
the  end  of  regularizing  the  demand  for  labor. 
The  history  of  the  attempts  in  the  former  direc- 
tion falls  largely  outside  the  scope  of  the  present 
study.  The  trade  unions  have  played  little  part 
in  it,  and  most  organized  schemes  of  this  sort  are 
attempts  to  secure  for  unskilled  workers  the  sort 
of  regularity  of  employment  which  trade  union 
"limitation  of  numbers"  (which  will  be  discussed 
in  the  next  section)  in  part  secures  for  certain 


UNEMPLOYMENT  83 

skilled  workers.  De-casualization,  the  policy 
which  Mr.  (now  Sir)  W.  H.  Beveridge  defined* 
as  follows: — ''that  all  the  irregular  men  for  each 
group  of  similar  employers  should  be  taken  on 
from  a  common  center  or  Exchange,  and  that  this 
Exchange  should  so  far  as  possible  concentrate 
employment  upon  the  smallest  number  that  will 
suffice  for  the  work  of  the  group  as  a  whole,'* 
was  an  invention  of  reformers  from  outside  in- 
dustry, as  an  attempt  primarily  to  solve  the 
problem  of  irregular  dock  labor.  The  most 
famous  attempts  at  putting  it  into  practice, 
those  which  substituted  some  degree  of  regulari- 
zation  for  the  hideous  scramble  for  work  at  the 
London  Docks,^  made  no  provision  for  trade 
union  activity.  More  recent  attempts,  however, 
have  used  the  trade  unions  at  least  in  a  sort  of 
junior  partnership.  The  Liverpool  Docks  Scheme, 
an  attempt  to  reduce  the  necessary  surplus  of  dock 
labor  to  the  minimum  by  a  system  of  registration 
of  workers  and  central  clearing  houses  and  call- 
stands,'  was  started  in  1913  as  a  government  un- 
dertaking, but  from  the  first  provided  for  a  joint 
committee  of  employers  and  trade  union  repre- 
sentatives to  supervise  its  working,  and  one  of  the 
rules  was  to  the  effect  that : — 

*  Unemployment:    a   Problem   of   Industry,   p.   201. 
*Ihid.,    pp.    81-95. 

•  For  details,  see  R.  Williams,  The  First   Year's   Working  of 
the  Liverpool  Docks  Scheme. 


84  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

"Employers  shall  issue  a  Registration  Card  to  any 
man  who  produces  liis  Dockers  Union  Membership  Card 
stamped  by  the  Branch  Office  to  which  he  belongs." 


It  is  clear,  however,  that  this  degree  of  control 
was  given  to  the  trade  union  in  order  to  secure 
its  co-operation  with  the  scheme  and  does  not 
represent  real  initiative  on  the  part  of  the  workers 
to  prevent  unemployment.  In  fact  the  government 
official  who  carried  out  the  scheme  speaks  of  the 
initial  "diffidence"  of  both  employers  and  em- 
ployed and  tells  the  story  of  a  strike  of  dock 
laborers  against  the  scheme. 

Similar  schemes  are  now  in  force  in  a  number  of 
other  ports  and  in  some  cases  involve  much  more 
positive  trade  union  activity.  In  many  of  the 
ports  where  all  men  employed  are  union  members 
registration  is  left  in  the  hands  of  the  union  as 
agents  for  the  Port  Labor  Joint  Committee — in 
some  cases  union  badges  are  even  used  as  the 
tallies.  And,  although  there  has  been  in  certain 
ports  trade  union  opposition,  a  number  of  trade 
union  leaders,  notably  Mr.  Ernest  Bevin  of  the 
Bristol  Dockers,  have  themselves  been  active  in 
the  devising  of  the  schemes  to  lessen  unemploy- 
ment. The  trade  unions,  then,  have  played  at 
least  an  acquiescent  and  in  some  cases  an  active 
part  in  certain  attempts  to  regularize  the  supply 
of  labor. 


UNEMPLOYMENT  85 

On  the  other  question,  the  attempt  to  regularize 
the  demand  for  labor,  the  trade  unions  have  again 
assumed  only  a  slight  degree  of  control.  There 
are  occasional  instances  of  joint  attempts  to  solve 
particular  problems  of  shortage  of  work.  It  is 
not  at  all  uncommon  for  a  trade  union  official  in 
the  course  of  his  ordinary  work  to  discuss  with  an 
employer  ways  and  means  of  avoiding  a  stoppage 
of  work  that  will  throw  his  members  out  of  em- 
ployment. Similar  matters  are  occasionally  dis- 
cussed by  works  committees.  The  Ministry  of 
Labor's  report  on  Works  Committees  *  speaks  of 
committees  of  building  trades  shop  stewards 
which  "may  make  representations  to,  or  be  con- 
sulted by,  the  employer  on  questions  such  as  the 
proper  allocation  of  work  in  order  that  sufficient 
inside  operations  may  be  reserved  for  wet 
weather"  (p.  40),  and  of  a  works  committee  in 
a  shipbuilding  yard  which  considered  among  other 
matters,  "  unemployment  questions — e.g.,  the 
purchase  by  the  firm  of  an  old  vessel  so  as  to 
employ  idle  men,  and  subscription  to  an  unem- 
ployed fund"  (p.  95). 

These  of  course  are  minor  and  immediate  ex- 
pedients and  the  great  question  of  trade  fluctua- 
tions is  naturally  almost  untouched  by  trade  union 
activity.  Political  Labor,  with  which  this  inquiry 
has  little  to  do,  has  given  some  attention  to  the 

*  See   Note  on   Sources. 


86  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

carefully  thought  out  suggestion  of  Professor 
Bowley,  taken  up  by  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Webb  and  em- 
bodied in  the  Minority  Report  of  the  Poor  Law 
Commission  (1908)  and  in  ''Labor  and  the  New 
Social  Order,"  of  spraying  work  from  a  public 
reservoir  to  counteract  trade  fluctuations.  An  ex- 
pression of  this  policy  in  trade  union  activity  has 
been  the  strenuous  protest  by  the  trade  unions 
affected  against  the  wholesale  discharge  from  Na- 
tional Factories  and  Dockyards  since  the  armistice, 
on  the  ground  that  the  Government  should  convert 
the  establishments  to  some  sort  of  useful  work  in 
a  time  of  unemployment. 

An  ambitious  recent  project  attempts  to  combine 
the  four  principles  just  discussed: — ^unemploy- 
ment a  charge  on  the  industry,  trade  union  admin- 
istration of  unemployment  pay  so  provided,  regu- 
larization  of  the  supply  of  labor,  and  regulariza- 
tion  of  the  demand  for  labor — in  a  single  scheme 
intended  to  be  carried  out  jointly  by  employers  and 
employed  in  a  great  industry.  The  Joint  Indus- 
trial Council  for  the  Building  Industry  had  placed 
in  its  constitution  the  "Prevention  of  Unemploy- 
ment" as  one  of  its  objects.  It  had  appointed  a 
sub-committeee  to  consider  the  more  efficient 
organization  of  the  industry.  At  the  annual  meet- 
ing of  the  Council,  held  August  14  and  15,  1919, 
this  Committee  presented  a  report — ^known  as  the 
''Foster  Report"  from  Mr.  Thomas  Foster,  the 


UNEMPLOYMENT  87 

chairman,  a  master-decorator  of  Burnley — on 
* '  Organized  Public  Service  in  the  Building  Indus- 
try, "  ^  a  document  which  was  signed  by  all  the 
workers  on  the  Committee  and  three  of  the  em- 
ployers, five  employers  dissenting.  The  report 
was  debated  at  length  and,  after  a  definitely  hostile 
amendment  had  been  voted  down,  was  referred 
back  to  the  same  Conmiittee  for  reconsideration 
and  elaboration.  The  Eeport  covers  a  wide  range 
of  subjects  which  will  be  referred  to  in  later  sec- 
tions— the  problem  of  unemployment,  however, 
takes  first  place  in  the  arrangement  of  the  report 
and  apparently  in  the  minds  of  its  supporters 
from  the  operatives'  side.  ''Fear  of  unemploy- 
ment" is  stated  as  the  first  cause  of  restriction 
of  output.  The  remedies  may  be  quoted  under  the 
headings  given  above.  In  charging  necessary  un- 
employment to  the  expense  of  the  industry  and  in 
entrusting  the  trade  unions  with  administering 
the  benefit,  the  report  follows  the  practice  of  the 
Cotton  Control  Board.  The  significant  passages 
are  as  follows: — 

"15.  "When  all  other  methods  of  providing  steady 
and  adeqnate  employment  for  the  operatives  have  been 
exhausted,  then  the  Industry  is  faced  with  the  question 
of  its  responsibility  towards  its  employees  during  pos- 
sible periods  of  unemployment.  We  are  convinced  that 
the  overhanging  fear  of  unemployment  must  be  finally 

■  See  Note  on  Sources. 


88  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

removed  before  the  operative  can  be  expected  whole- 
heartedly to  give  of  his  best.  .' .  . 

17. —  We  further  recommend  that  in  cases  of  unavoid- 
able unemployment,  the  maintenance  of  its  unemployed 
members  shall  be  undertaken  by  the  Industry  through  its 
Employment  Committees,  and  that  the  necessary  revenue 
shall  be  raised  by  means  of  a  fixed  percentage  on  the 
wages  bill,  and  paid  weekly  to  the  Employment  Com- 
mittee by  each  employer  on  the  joint  certificate  of  him- 
self and  a  shop  steward  or  other  accredited  trade  union 
representative. 

19. —  While  the  collection  of  this  revenue  should  be 
carried  out  by  the  Employment  Committees,  the  pay- 
ments should  be  made  by  periodical  refund  to  the  trade 
unions,  who  would  thus  become  an  important  integral 
part  of  the  official  machinery  and  would  distribute  the 
unemployment  pay  in  accordance  with  the  regulations 
prescribed  by  the  Industrial  Council  and  its  Com- 
mittees. ' ' 

The  question  of  regularizing  the  supply  of 
labor,  which  was  at  the  same  time  being  incident- 
ally considered  by  the  Resettlement  Committee  of 
the  same  Council,  was  touched  on  as  follows : — 

"42. —  It  is  obvious  that  the  important  improvements 
we  have  outlined  will  tend  to  make  service  in  the  In- 
dustry more  attractive;  and  while  the  interests  of  the 
public  service  emphatically  demand  the  enrollment  of 
every  member  who  can  be  trained  and  utilized  in  the 
Building  Industry,  we  fully  recognize  that  indiscriminate 
enrollment  must  be  prevented  by  careful  regulation. 

43. —  We  therefore  recommend  that  the  development 


UNEMPLOYMENT  89 

of  the  Industry  should  be  kept  under  constant  review  by 
the  Employment  Committees,  and  that  these  Committees 
should  periodically  notify  the  trade  unions  as  to  the 
number  of  new  members  that  may  apply  for  registration 
under  the  Employment  Scheme,  after  a  suitable  trade 
test  or  evidence  of  previous  service  in  the  Industry. 

16. —  .  .  .  The  machinery  for  filling  vacancies  already 
exists  in  the  trade  union  organization  and  should  be 
developed  to  the  greatest  possible  extent,  in  order  to 
supplement  the  State  Employment  Exchanges  so  far  as 
the  Building  Industry  is  concerned." 

The  most  elaborate  and  far-reaching  proposals 
have  to  do  with  the  regularization  of  demand,  by 
the  planning  of  public  work  to  counteract  trade 
depressions  and  by  dove-tailing  with  other  indus- 
tries to  counteract  seasonal  unemployment.  The 
report  reads  as  follows: — 

**9. —  .  .  .  We  consider  it  essential  that  the  whole 
productive  capacity  of  the  Industry  should  be  continu- 
ously engaged  and  absorbed,  and  that  a  regular  flow 
of  contracts  should  replace  the  old  haphazard  alterna- 
tions of  congestion  and  stagnation. 

It  is  well  known  that  the  proportion  of  public  to 
private  work  is  very  considerable  and  that  it  is  well 
within  the  powers  of  Public  Authorities  to  speed  up  or 
to  delay  contracts.    We  therefore  recommend: — 

(a)  That  the  Industrial  Council  shall  set  up  a 
permanent  committee  entitled  the  Building 
Trades  Central  Employment  Committee,  with 
the  necessary  clerical  staff. 


90  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

(b)  That  each  Regional  Council  shall  similarly  set 

up  a  Building  Trades  Regional  Employment 
Committee. 

(c)  That  each  Local  or  Area  Council  shall  similarly 

set  up  a  Building  Trades  Area  Employment 
Committee. 

(d)  That  each  Committee  shall  consist  of  an  equal 

number  of  employers  and  operatives  with 
one  architect  appointed  by  the  local  pro- 
fessional Association  of  Architects  or  by  the 
Royal  Institute  of  British  Architects  as  may 
be  most  appropriate. 
10. —  The  first  duty  of  these  Committees  would  be  to 
regularize  the  demand  for  building: — 

(a)  at  the  approach  of  slack  periods,  by  accelerat- 

ing new  building  enterprises,  both  public  and 
private,  with  the  co-operation  of  architects 
and  local  authorities; 

(b)  conversely,  at  periods  of  congestion,  by  advis- 

ing building  owners  to  postpone  the  construc- 
tion of  such  works  as  are  not  of  an  urgent 
character.  .  .  . 
13.—  .  .  .  The    difficulty   of   providing   employment 
during  wet  and  bad  seasons  has  yet  to  be  faced.     We 
feel  that  a  certain  amount  of  investigation  is  still  needed 
in  this  direction,  and  venture  to  suggest  that  the  Build- 
ing Trades  Industrial  Council  should  approach  the  re- 
presentatives of  other  industries  with  a  view  to  investi- 
gating the  possibility  of  'dove-tailing'  or  seasonal  inter- 
change of  labor. 

There  would  appear  to  be  a  large  volume  of  national 
and  private  work  which  could  be  undertaken  when  the 
Industry  itself  could  not  usefully  employ  all  its  avail- 
able labor,  for  example: — 


UNEMPLOYMENT  91 

(a)  Afforestation. 

(b)  Road-making. 

(c)  The  preparation  of  sites  for  housing  schemes. 

(d)  Demolition  of  unsanitary  or  condemned  areas 

in  preparation  for  improvements." 

) 
The  Foster  Report  is  of  course  only  in  the  dis- 
cussion stage ;  it  is,  however,  of  great  interest  as 
the  most  elaborate  plan  for  joint  action  against 
unemployment  being  seriously  debated  by  employ- 
ers and  employed.  In  the  field  of  already  accom- 
plished fact,  the  instances  of  any  degree  of  work- 
ers' control  over  unemployment  problems  are  of 
two  sorts.  There  are  first  the  numerous  rules  by 
which  the  trade  unions  exert  pressure  upon  em- 
ployers to  distribute  work  equally  and  to  plan 
against  unemployment.  Of  these  the  principle  of 
guaranteed  time  is  the  furthest  development.  In 
the  second  place  there  have  been  the  exercise  by 
trade  unions  of  administrative  functions  in  con- 
nection with  jointly  controlled  attempts  to  meet 
the  problem  of  unemployment.  Of  these  the  Cot- 
ton Control  Board  and  the  Dock  Clearing  House 
schemes  are  the  only  important  examples. 


«  THE  RIGHT  TO  A  TRADE  " 

The  trade  union  control  studied  in  the  preceding 
sections  dealt  almost  entirely  with  the  quantitative 
regulation  of  employment  or  with  the  condition 
of  union  membership.  There  still  remain  the  quali- 
tative restrictions  on  employment — the  attempts 
of  the  unions  to  say  what  class  of  workman  shall 
be  set  to  do  a  particular  sort  of  job. 

Apprenticeship — the  limiting  of  work  in  a  par- 
ticular trade  or  on  a  particular  process  to  men  who 
have  served  a  specified  term  of  years  as  learn- 
ers of  the  trade — is  the  most  talked-of  restriction 
of  this  nature.  But  perhaps  the  most  important 
thing  to  say  about  it  is  how  little  of  it  there  really 
is.  Even  in  1897,  the  Webbs  emphasized  this  by 
the  following  table  {Industrial  Democracy,  p.  473, 
footnote) : — 

(1)  Membership  of  Trade  Unions  actually  en- 

forcing apprenticeship  regulations ....        90,000 

(2)  Membership  of  Trade  Unions  nominally 

retaining    apprenticeship    regulations, 

but  effectively  open 500,000 

92 


"  THE  RIGHT  TO  A  TRADE  "  93 

(3)  Membership  of  Trade  Unions  having  no 
apprenticeship  regulations  :— 

a.  Transport  workers  and 

laborers   250,000 

b.  Textile,     mining,     and 

other  occupations  . . .  650,000         900,000 


1,490,000 


A  few  moments'  figuring  will  show  that  their 
argument  now  holds  a  fortiori;  that  the  proportion 
of  the  trade  union  movement  in  class  (3)  is  at  the 
present  time  much  greater  than  when  the  Webbs 
wrote.  Class  (3)  (a)  in  1915  would  have  included 
under  transport  workers  (738,000)  and  common 
labor  (including  builders'  laborers — 789,000)  more 
than  a  million  and  a  quarter  workers.  Adding  to 
this  the  857,000  engaged  in  mining,  the  258,000 
shop  assistants,  clerks,  and  employees  of  public 
authorities  and  the  500,000  in  the  textile  industry 
(from  which,  however,  a  few  minor  sections  should 
be  subtracted)  the  figures  come  to  2,850,000  with- 
out any  attempt  to  study  the  smaller  trades ;  and 
a  detailed  investigation  would  surely  show  that 
many  more  than  three  million  out  of  the  4,126,793 
members  reported  in  1915  were  in  unions  not  even 
claiming  apprenticeship  regulations.  Even  this 
fails  to  weight  the  figure  sufficiently,  since  it  is 
precisely  in  general  labor  and  women's  labor  that 
trade  unionism  has  grown  most  rapidly  since  1915. 


94)  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

Fully  as  striking  for  the  purpose  is  the  break- 
down of  what  was  left  of  apprenticeship  in  the 
trades  classified  by  the  Webbs  under  (2).  The 
numbers  of  trade  unionists  in  these  trades  is  now 
greater,  but  the  importance  of  apprenticeship  in 
them  has  greatly  dwindled.  The  Webbs  spoke 
then  of  the  *'  complete  collapse"  of  apprentice- 
ship regulations  in  engineering — a  phrase  which 
unfortunately  leaves  little  room  for  describing  the 
changes  both  before  and  during  the  war  by  which 
the  industry  was  invaded  by  dilutees  who  were 
taught  one  process  alone  and  were  used  on  repeti- 
tion work. 

Apprenticeship,  then,  is  no  longer  of  first-class 
importance  in  the  greater  industries ;  ^  but  it  is 
still  worth  while  to  notice  what  degree  of  control 
it  involves.  This  is  of  two  sorts — the  limitation 
of  numbers  and  a  certain  command  over  technique 
and  training  in  technique.  The  first  is  no  doubt 
the  more  important  object  of  the  regulations; 
limitation  of  entry  means  monopoly  and  there- 
fore high  wages  and  some  security  of  employment, 
and  a  much  more  considerable  basis  for  control 
than  even  the  compulsory  trade  unionism  referred 
to  in  the  third  section.  The  power  of  the  Stuff 
Pressers  rests  largely  on  the  regulation  which 


*  An  incidental  indication  of  this  is  the  fact  that  the  word 
"  apprenticeship "  does  not  appear  in  the  index  of  G.  D,  H. 
Cole's  Introduction  to  Trade   Unionism. 


"  THE  RIGHT  TO  A  TRADE  "  95 

limits  apprentices  to  a  proportion  of  one  to  ten 
journeymen,  though  even  in  this  extreme  case  the 
union  finds  it  sometimes  necessary  to  admit  men 
who  have  not  served  their  time.  This  is  of  inter- 
est for  this  inquiry  merely  in  so  far  as  it  becomes 
a  means  for  securing  further  control — for  our 
purpose  it  is  more  interesting  to  study  the  few 
instances  in  which  apprenticeship  means  some  con- 
trol by  the  union  over  the  education  of  the  worker 
in  his  trade. 

Probably  every  trade  that  retains  apprentice- 
ship retains  some  degree  of  control  over  the  train- 
ing of  apprentices,  if  only,  as  with  the  Glasgow 
Bakers,  to  the  extent  "that  the  Operatives'  Com- 
mittee have  power  to  make  inquiry  so  as  to  ascer- 
tain that  the  apprentice  is  not  an  underpaid 
journeyman."  Often,  however,  this  means  a  cer- 
tain control  over  the  actual  training  the  appren- 
tice receives — if  not  positive  control  in  the  sense 
of  directing  the  training,  at  least  negative  control 
in  the  sense  of  effective  complaint  when  the  em- 
ployer fails  too  signally  to  give  the  apprentices  a 
full  chance  to  learn  the  trade.  The  Power  Loom 
Overlookers  (wool),  for  example,  will  fight  the 
issue  of  the  proper  training  of  an  apprentice.  The 
monthly  form  which  the  "father  of  the  chapel" 
(the  printers'  shop  steward)  fills  out  for  his  union 
contains  a  space  for  reporting  a  failure  to  give 
apprentices  a  fair  chance  to  learn  the  trade.    In 


96  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

one  old-fashioned  monopoly  craft,  in  which  the 
employing  side  admits  that  "the  unions  have 
earned  supremacy  over  the  question,"  the  union 
exhorts  its  members  to  ''intelligently  study  the 
handicraft"  and  claims  in  dignijQed  language  the 
right  to  protest  against  the  choice  of  unfit  appren- 
tices, which  in  practice  means  a  veto  power  on 
their  selection.  The  handful  of  ''potters'  paint- 
ers," the  most  skilled  workers  in  the  potting  in- 
dustry, claimed  and  won  the  right  to  fill  the  latest 
vacancy  in  their  craft.  Much  more  striking  is  the 
rule  of  the  Britannia  Metal  Smiths,  one  of  the  tiny 
archaic  unions  of  the  Sheffield  light  trades,  which 
requires : — 

"That  every  boy  on  completing  his  apprenticeship 
shall  be  reported  upon  by  the  men  working  at  the  firm 
as  to  his  abilities,  before  he  is  accepted  by  the  Trade. 
If  it  be  found  that  the  said  boy  is  incompetent  as  a  work- 
man, the  Committee  shall  institute  an  enquiry  and,  if 
possible  ascertain  the  cause,  and  take  the  necessary  steps 
to  prevent  a  similar  misfortune." 

There  are  several  instances  of  joint  control 
over  apprenticeship.  An  extract  from  an  arbi- 
trator's award,  dated  1909,  shows  the  situation 
among  the  Bookbinders: — 

"It  being  further  agreed  by  the  employers  .  .  .  that 
the  apprentices  be  trained  not  merely  in  a  sub-section 


«  THE  RIGHT  TO  A  TRADE  "  97 

but  in  a  branch.  Evidence  was  given  me  as  to  the 
technical  training  of  apprentices  at  technical  classes  and 
as  to  the  desire  of  the  employers  to  co-operate  with  the 
societies  in  encouraging  and  improving  the  apprentices' 
training. ' ' 

The  1916  report  of  the  London  Society  of  Com- 
positors welcomes  the  adoption  of  a  joint  scheme 
**for  the  better  education  of  the  printer's  appren- 
tice" with  the  following  remarks: — 

"The  training  of  apprentices  has  long  been  regarded 
as  a  matter  of  supreme  importance  both  to  the  Society 
and  to  the  trade  at  large  .  .  .  The  apprentice  is  not 
only  the  journeyman  of  the  future;  he  is  the  trade 
unionist  of  the  future.  Our  effort,  then,  should  be  to 
make  him  a  better  printer  and  a  better  man,  and  there- 
fore a  better  member." 

Since  the  Joint  Industrial  Council  of  the  building 
industry  announced  that  one  of  its  objects  was 
''to  arrange  for  adequate  technical  training  for 
the  members  of  the  industry, ' '  there  has  been  some 
activity  in  planning  toward  that  end.  One  scheme, 
originated  by  Mr.  Frank  Woods,  a  Bolton  builder, 
and  already  approved  by  the  Joint  Council  for  the 
North  Western  Area,  provides  an  elaborate  plan 
of  training  under  supervision  of  a  committee  rep- 
resenting (1)  the  employers'  association,  (2)  the 
unions,  (3)  the  Education  Authority,  and  (4)  the 
Juvenile  Employment  Committee  of  the  Ministry 
of  Labor,  which  shall  deal  both  with  the  selection 


98  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

of  apprentices  and  with  complaints  either  as  to 
their  misconduct  or  as  to  the  employer's  failure 
to  teach  the  trade.  ''Those  employers  who  shirk 
their  duties  and  do  not  train  apprentices  will  have 
to  be  dealt  with, ' '  the  argument  runs ;  but  * '  I  am 
strongly  against  State  interference.  I  would 
rather  trust  to  joint  control  and  joint  action  to 
remedy  this  defect." 

The  claim  of  a  craft  union  to  some  control  over 
training  in  the  technique  of  the  craft  is  only  one 
manifestation  of  its  feeling  that,  as  a  body  of  men 
possessing  a  special  skill,  it  possesses  a  certain 
** right  to  a  trade"  comparable,  and  in  fact  com- 
pared in  the  constitution  of  the  Amalgamated 
Society  of  Engineers,''  to  the  right  belonging  to  the 
holder  of  a  doctor's  diploma.  This  ''right"  in- 
volves two  principles  (1)  that  the  tradesman  shall 
be  asked  to  do  only  his  own  sort  of  work  and  (2) 
that  no  other  w^orkman  shall  do  the  tradesman's 
sort  of  work.  The  first  principle  has  been  some- 
what obscured  by  the  sharp  conflict  over  appren- 
ticeship, demarcation,  and  dilution,  which  involve 
the  second  issue;  but  it  is  worth  noticing  as  in- 
dicating the  background  of  the  second  claim.  Even 
in  as  loosely-organized  an  industry  as  pottery,  the 
union  will  usually  back  a  man  who  refuses  to  do 
work  other  than  that  for  which  he  was  hired. 


*  Which  corresponds  roughly  to  the  International  Association 
of  Machinists. 


«  THE  RIGHT  TO  A  TRADE  "  99 

The  demarcation^  issue,  both  because  of.  its 
practical  importance  to  the  organization  of  the 
trade  union  world  and  because  the  principle  of  the 
right  to  a  trade  is  most  plainly  seen  when  two 
rights  to  a  trade  meet  head  on,  is  usually  taken  as 
the  illustration  of  this  right.  Two  trades  claim  a 
monopoly  of  a  particular  job — e.g.  **the  whole  of 
the  fitting  up  and  repairing  of  the  Downton 
pumps" — ^based  on  what  is  for  all  intents  and  pur- 
poses a  property  right  to  their  ** means  of  living." 
The  fierceness  with  which  these  disputes  are 
fought  cannot  entirely  be  explained  on  the  basis 
of  wages,  though  there  is  always  the  fear  that  the 
job  will  go  to  the  union  with  the  lower  rate.  * '  The 
whole  question  from  our  point  of  view  is  one  of 
wages,"  said  Mr.  George  Barnes,  then  Secretary 
of  the  Engineers,  in  1897;  but  the  apparently 
reasonable  suggestion  that  the  issue  be  solved  by 
setting  a  rate  for  the  disputed  job  and  letting  the 
employer  choose  a  man  from  either  or  any  union 
does  not  seem  to  solve  the  difficulty.  It  leaves  un- 
touched the  fear  of  unemployment,  which  ''gives 
most  of  the  bitterness  to  the  troublesome  demarca- 
tion disputes  among  the  different  crafts,"*  and 
also  whatever  may  be  left  of  the  old  feeling  of 
craft- right  and  the  craftsman's  distaste  for  seeing 

•The  familiar  American  term  is  "jurisdictional  dispute." 
*  Sidney  Webb,  The  Restoration  of  Trade   Union  Covditiont, 
p.  69.    . 


100         THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

somebody  else  do  what  he  is  trained  to  do.  The 
issue  is  by  no  means  a  settled  one — one  former 
trade  union  oflBcial  even  said  that  ''the  trade  union 
movement  spends  a  third  of  its  energy  on  demar- 
cation"— but  it  may  be  left  at  one  side  in  this 
discussion.  Disputes  over  demarcation  are  not  an 
extension  of  workers '  control  but  a  division  of  it, 
and  they  are  to  the  point  merely  as  making  ex- 
plicit the  feeling  of  a  craft's  prescriptive  "right 
to  earn  its  bread  without  the  interference  of  out- 
siders, ' '  which  is  at  the  base  of  many  of  the  regu- 
lations of  the  more  exclusive  trades. 

Dilution — or  the  replacing  of  skilled  men  by  less 
skilled  men  or  women — is  at  the  moment  an  even 
more  serious  problem.  It  will  be  considered  again 
in  the  sections  on  "Technique,"  but  the  objection 
to  dilution  is  worth  mentioning  here  as  exhibiting 
again  the  feeling  of  the  right  to  the  trade.  This 
is  a  case  not  of  craft  against  craft  but  of  craft 
against  unskilled  and  woman  labor,  and  the  same 
fear  of  an  inrush  of  numbers  into  the  trade  and 
the  consequent  danger  of  unemployment  is  even 
more  strongly  marked.  "Do  I  feel  that  the  man 
on  the  next  machine  is  competing  for  my  job!" 
writes  Mr.  J.  T.  Murphy."  "  Do  I  feel  that  the 
vast  army  who  have  entered  into  industry  will 
soon  be  scrambling  with  me  at  the  works  gates  for 
a  job  in  order  to  obtain  the  means  of  a  livelihood! 

*  The   Workers'   Committee,  p.   1. 


"  THE  RIGHT  TO  A  TRADE  "  101 

My  attitude  towards  the  dilution  of  labor  will 
obviously  be  different  to  the  man  who  is  not  likely 
to  be  subject  to  such  an  experience."  Limitation 
of  entry  is  in  part,  as  was  suggested  in  the  last 
section,  an  attempt  to  bulwark  the  workers  al- 
ready in  the  trade  against  unemployment.  It  is 
in  those  terms  that  Mr.  Bradshaw,  the  secretary 
of  the  National  Federation  of  Building  Trades 
Operatives,  argues  ®  against  an  indiscriminate  ex- 
pansion of  the  supply  of  building  labor : 

*  *  Some  of  us  know  what  it  is  to  walk  about  the  streets 
with  nothing  to  do.  What  will  happen  when  the  boom 
in  building  comes  to  an  end?  We  shall  be  willing  to 
let  people  come  into  our  trade  if  we  have  proper  safe- 
guards ;  if,  in  other  words,  the  Government  will  guaran- 
tee them  and  us  continued  employment,  or  alternatively 
adequate  maintenance.  If  the  dread  of  future  unem- 
ployment were  removed,  it  would  go  a  long  way  to 
remove  objections  to  'expansion.'  We  have  the  oppor- 
tunity now  to  make  ourselves  reasonably  safe,  and  it  is 
only  natural  that  we  should  take  advantage  of  it.  .  .  . 
In  the  past  we  have  worked  on  a  building  knowing  that 
as  soon  as  it  was  finished  we  should  be  out  of  work. 
.  .  .  Guarantee  our  employment,  and  there  will  be  no 
trouble  in  getting  the  houses." 

The  fear  of  unemployment  is  common  to  these 
regulations.    But  in  the  case  of  dilution  the  wage 

•  Interview  quoted  in  the  London  Timet,  July  4,  1919. 


102  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

element  is  even  more  important  than  in  the  case 
of  demarcation.  The  fear  is  not  only  that  skilled 
jobs  may  become  harder  to  get,  the  great  fear  is 
that  all  skill  will  lose  its  market  value.  The  in- 
terest in  the  dilution  problem  is  not  the  interest 
in  a  new  form  of  control.  Dilution  is  interesting 
as  a  symptom  of  the  end  of  an  old  form  of  control. 
It  calls  attention  to  the  fact  thai/  the  current  move- 
ments in  industrial  technology  are  running  directly 
counter  to  the  type  of  control  studied  in  this  sec- 
tion. Apprenticeship  and  similar  regulations  are 
in  the  main  survivals  from  the  handicraft  tech- 
nique or  at  least  from  an  earlier  form  of  the 
machine  technique.  They  are  not  only  confined  to 
a  small  fraction  of  industry;  even  there  they  are 
giving  ground  before  the  standardization  of  the 
most  typical  modem  machine  production.  **  Every 
simplification  in  the  methods  of  production,"  says 
Mr.  Murphy  in  the  pamphlet  quoted,  *' every  im- 
provement in  automatic  machine  production, 
every  application  of  machinery  in  place  of  hand 
production  means  that  the  way  becomes  easier  for 
others  to  enter  the  trades." 

The  issues  of  dilution  and  particularly  the  in- 
troduction of  women  labor  raise  highly  interesting 
problems,  but  it  is  unnecessary  to  consider  them 
further  in  a  study  of  this  kind.  That  sort  of  con- 
trol which  merely  means  keeping  other  people  out 
of  a  job  may  be  of  high  importance  as  a  basis  for 


«  THE  RIGHT  TO  A  TRADE  »  103 

further  extensions  of  control;  in  itself  it  involves 
little  or  no  direction  of  industry.  It  is  moreover 
just  this  sort  of  control  which  is  becoming  less 
and  less  possible  with  the  modernization  of  in- 
dustry. 


VI 

«  THE  RIGHT  TO  SACK  " 

**The  control  I  want  is  over  the  employer's  right 
to  sack  a  man." 

That  remark  of  a  Sheffield  shop  steward,  a  re- 
mark the  more  pointed  because  many  of  his  fellow 
shop  stewards  were  at  the  time  walking  the  streets 
in  search  of  work,  expresses  a  demand  for  security 
of  tenure,  not  only  against  dismissals  due  to  bad 
trade,  but  also  against  disciplinary  dismissals  and 
particularly  against  dismissals  for  the  punishment 
of  men  exceptionally  active  as  labor  leaders.* 
That  is,  it  is  a  demand  for  protection  against  what 
the  British  workers  call  ** victimization" — of  de- 
fence for  the  man,  ''who  by  reason  of  continuous 
activity  in  forwarding  the  cause  of  the  Union  is 
dismissed"  (rules  of  Boot  and  Shoe  Operatives), 
or  "who  has  been  victimized,  on  account  of  being 
ever  ready  to  fight  for  the  interests  of  himself 
and  his  fellow  members"  (rules  of  Steel  Smel- 
ters). Victimization,  or  at  least  the  suspicion 
of  it,  is  very  widespread.    *  *  The  workmen  are  ever 

*  In  practice,  the  distinction  between  dismissals  due  to  bad 
trade  and  dismissals  for  union  activity  is  not  a  clear  one.  A 
time  of  depression  may  be  made  the  occasion  for  a  general 
clearing-out  of  "  agitators." 

104 


"THE  RIGHT  TO  SACK"  105 

conscious  of  the  power  of  the  employers  to  sack 
them. ' '  ^  Even  among  the  miners,  for  all  their 
industrial  power  and  for  all  their  willingness  to 
use  it  on  a  personal  issue,  there  are  continual  com- 
plaints of  victimization.  A  working  collier  in  the 
Midlands  writes  of  ''the  invisible  insecurity  of 
work, "  ' '  a  kind  of  victimization  which  you  cannot 
prove" — "where  men  stood  by  their  comrades 
they  were  soon  out  of  work,  not  knowing  what 
for." 

For  our  purpose,  the  interesting  thing  is  not 
that  victimization  is  practised,^  or  the  highly 
controversial  point  as  to  just  how  much  of  it  there 
is,  but  rather  the  efforts  made  by  the  trade  unions 
to  prevent  it — efforts  which  have  in  fact  though 
not  in  form  amounted  to  a  considerable  control 
over  the  power  of  dismissal. 

The  importance  of  the  issue,  as  felt  by  the  labor 
extremists,  is  indicated  by  a  quotation  from  the 
Miners'  Next  Step:  * — 

"Grievances  are  not  questions,  with  us,  so  much  of 
numbers  as  of  principles.  It  might,  and  probably  would 
be,  deemed  advisable  to  have  a  strike  of  the  whole  organi- 
zation to  defend  one  man  from  victimization. ' ' 

The  importance  of  the  issue,  as  expressed  in 
trade  union  action,  is  indicated  by  the  number  of 

*  J.  T.  Murphy,  The  Workers'  Committee,  p.  6. 

*  The  American  Association  of  University  Professors  would 
testify  that  it  is  not  unknown  in  colleges. 

*  See  Note  on  Sources. 


106  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

strikes  called  to  secure  the  reinstatement  of  dis- 
charged workpeople.  In  1913  there  were  117 
strikes  on  this  issue,  directly  involving  25,000 
workpeople ;  in  1911  and  1912  approximately  16,000 
were  involved  each  year.^  In  the  summer  of  1918, 
20,000  workers  took  part  in  a  single  strike  at  a 
London  aircraft  factory  as  a  protest  against  the 
discharge  of  a  woman  shop  steward  and  the  chair- 
man of  shop  stewards.®  An  amusing  recent  in- 
stance is  the  strike  of  Black  Country  colliery  en- 
ginemen  that  was  settled  in  June,  1919,  on  the 
single  condition  ''that  the  dismissed  engineman  be 
reinstated  for  an  hour. ' '  An  indication  of  the  ex- 
tent of  control  over  dismissals  exercised  by  the 
trade  unions  in  this  manner,  without  any  sort  of 
agreement,  is  given  in  the  evidence  before  the 
Coal  Commission  of  Mr.  Hugh  Bramwell,  repre- 
senting the  South  Wales  coal-owners: — 

"Minor  strikes  of  workmen  on  this  question  are  not 
uncommon.  A  manager  knows  he  cannot  be  unjust 
without  risking  the  stoppage  of  the  mine — consequently 
when  he  does  act,  he  does  so  under  a  sense  of  responsi- 
bility."' 


■  The  Government  Report  on  Strikes  and  Lockouts  does  not 
give  separate  figures  for  reinstatement  cases  for  tliose  years, 
but  estimates  tliat  they  were  "  nearly  one-half "  of  the  cases 
under  the  heading  of  "  Employment  of  particular  classes  or 
persons":— 1911,  170  disputes,  32,639  people;  1912,  179  dis- 
putes, 34,985  people.     See  Note  on   Sources. 

•  Furnishing  Trades  Association  Monthly  Report,  August,  1918. 

»  Cd.  360,  p.  874. 


"  THE  RIGHT  TO  SACK  "  107 

There  have  been  a  few  attempts  either  to  ex- 
press in  written  agreement  this  trade  union  check 
over  the  right  of  dismissal  or  to  set  up  some  joint 
body  for  settling  disputed  cases.  The  rules  of  the 
conciliation  board  of  the  Leicester  dyeing  trade 
contain  under  the  head  of  "Freedom  of  Work- 
people" what  is  at  least  a  pious  expression  of 
opinion  against  victimization: — 

"That  all  workmen  delegates  shall  be  as  free  as 
employers  to  express  their  opinion  without  fear  or 
favor;  and  no  workman  shall  be  dismissed  from  his 
employment  for  any  action  he  may  take  on  the  Board." 

A  dispute  over  the  discharge  of  a  shop  steward 
at  one  of  the  Vickers  munition  works  was  settled 
through  the  Ministry  of  Munitions,  on  the  follow- 
ing terms: — 

"(1)  The  steward  to  be  reinstated  and  full  inquiry 
into  procedure  afterwards. 

"(2)  That  in  future  cases  of  proposed  dismissal  of 
stewards  or  local  trade  union  officials,  notice  of  appeal 
shall  be  given  to  the  management  within  48  hours.  The 
management  to  hear  the  case  within  a  further  48  hours ; 
failing  agreement  the  question  to  be  dealt  with  by  the 
trade  union  officials  and  the  Employers'  Association 
within  7  days  if  possible." 

The  Government's  Commission  on  Industrial 
Unrest  (1917)  in  its  report  on  South  Wales  recom- 
mended:— 


108         THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

"That  every  employee  should  be  guaranteed  what  we 
may  call  'security  of  tenure' — that  is,  that  no  workman 
should  be  liable  to  be  dismissed  except  with  the  consent 
of  his  fellow  workmen  as  well  as  his  employer." 

The  report  on  Works  Committees  issued  by  the 
Ministry  of  Labor  gives  several  instances  in  which 
^'alleged  unjust  dismissals''  are  discussed  by  joint 
committees,  although  at  least  two  employers  who 
experimented  in  this  direction  found  that  their 
shop  stewards'  committees  preferred  not  to  dis- 
cuss beforehand  disciplinary  discharges,  in  order 
that  they  might  avoid  responsibility.  Messrs. 
Reuben  Gaunt  &  Sons,  Ltd.,  a  firm  of  Yorkshire 
worsted  spinners,  have  recently  gone  beyond  the 
stage  of  joint  discussion  to  that  of  actual  joint 
decision  on  disciplinary  dismissals.  Any  employee 
has  the  right  of  appeal  from  discharge  or  punish- 
ment to  a  body  composed  of  equal  numbers  chosen 
by  the  firm  and  the  workers — in  a  recent  case  be- 
fore this  tribunal  the  defendant  was  a  foreman 
charged  with  bullying  a  woman  worker. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  the  last  few  instances, 
and  the  suggestion  of  the  Commission  on  Indus- 
trial Unrest,  run  beyond  victimization  proper — 
i.e.  persecution  for  union  activity — to  a  reference 
to  all  cases  of  disciplinary  dismissal.  'The  same 
is  true  of  the  reinstatement  strikes.  Victimiza- 
tion is  only  a  special  case  under  the  issues  of  sup- 
posed personal  injustice  which  the  Unions  contest. 


*'  THE  RIGHT  TO  SACK  »'  109 

**  Redress  for  all  .  .  .  unjust  or  captious  and  un- 
lawful dismissals,"  is  given  as  one  of  the  objects 
in  the  constitution  of  the  British  Steel  Smelters. 
It  is  in  practice  fought  for  by  many  other  unions. 
One  important  dispute,  for  example,  was  occa- 
sioned by  the  discharge  of  a  railway  guard, 
Richardson,  for  refusing  to  obey  an  order  that 
conflicted  with  the  Company's  printed  rules — that 
is,  for  refusing  to  take  out  a  train  loaded  beyond 
the  specified  capacity;  his  reinstatement  was  se- 
cured by  trade  union  pressure.^  A  strike  of  pot- 
tery workers  secured  the  reinstatement  of  a  man- 
ager who,  the  men  said,  had  been  discharged  for 
refusing  to  bully  his  workmen. 

The  same  principle  is  naturally  extended  to  re- 
ductions in  rank  as  well  as  outright  dismissals. 
One  of  the  most  famous  of  all  reinstatement  cases 
was  the  ''Knox  Strike"  of  1911  when  six  thousand 
men  on  the  North  Eastern  Railway  came  out,  in 
the  words  of  the  Government  report,  "for  rein- 
statement of  an  engine-driver  who  had  been  re- 
duced in  rank  owing  to  alleged  drunkenness  off 
duty  for  which  he  had  been  fined  in  the  Police 
Court. ' '  The  papers  featured  the  affair  as  a  strike 
for  the  ''right  to  get  drunk."  Finally  Driver 
Knox  was  "reinstated  as  a  result  of  Home  Office 
Enquiry  into  the  case."    For  our  purpose  it  does 


*  G.  D.  H.  Cole  and  R.  Page  Arnot,  Trade  Unionism  on  the 
Railways,  p.  33. 


110         THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

not  matter  much  whether  the  Police  Court  or  the 
Home  Office  was  the  better  judge  of  drunkenness. 
The  point  is  that  the  men  were  quick  to  contest  a 
case  of  what  they  considered  an  unjust  punish- 
ment.^ 

Trade  union  control  over  disciplinary  dismissals 
and  reductions  in  grade — whether  for  ''agitation" 
or  other  causes — is,  judged  by  formal  agreement, 
very  slight.  By  the  more  important  test  of  the 
effect  of  the  readiness  to  strike  on  the  issue,  the 
control  is  much  more  considerable.  The  **  em- 
ployer's right  to  sack  a  man"  is  at  least  exercised 
with  a  degree  of  deference  to  public  opinion  in 
the  workshop  and  to  the  danger  of  the  ''one-man 
strike." 

*  Mr.  Cole  and  others  point  to  this  strike  as  the  first  of  many 
recent  disputes  over  "  discipline." 


VII 
PROMOTION 

The  trade  unions  have,  as  we  have  seen,  taken  a 
share  in  determining  the  conditions  under  which 
workers  are  taken  on.  And  in  defending  their 
members  against  injustice,  they  have  taken  at 
least  a  negative  share  in  determining  the  condi- 
tions under  which  they  are  dismissed,  disciplined 
or  demoted.  Have  they  exercised  any  similar  con- 
trol over  the  conditions  under  which  workers  are 
promoted  from  one  grade  to  another? 

In  most  cases  promotion  falls  outside  the 
union's  business.  Trade  unionism  is  first  of  all 
concerned  with  the  general  standard  of  the  entire 
group;  promotion  is  the  luck  of  the  exceptional 
individual.  But  the  answer  to  the  question  is  not 
an  unqualified  ''no/' 

There  are  certain  industries  in  which  there  is 
what  the  Webbs  call  * '  regulated  progression  with- 
in the  trade" — that  is,  a  system  under  which  vac- 
ancies within  a  grade  are  filled,  if  there  are  no  men 
of  that  grade  available,  by  men  from  the  grade 
just  below.  The  best  example  is  that  of  the  Boiler- 
makers in  which  the  holders-up  may  become  platers 
and  rivetters  only  when  no  properly-apprenticed 

111 


112         THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

members  of  those  branches  of  the  trade  are  out 
of  work.  A  similar  progression  is  enforced  by  the 
Steel  Smelters.  The  Webbs  made  the  point  that, 
beyond  this  modified  seniority,  in  which,  while  the 
man  chosen  must  be  from  a  certain  group,  the 
choice  of  the  most  promising  individual  from  that 
group  is  left  to  the  employer,  the  principle  of 
seniority  does  not  enter  into  trade  union  policy. 
**No  such  idea  of  seniority  [as  in  the  Ci\dl  Ser- 
vice] is  to  be  found  in  the  trade  union  regula- 
tions." This  is  now  not  strictly  true.  In  the 
cotton  industry  there  are  occasional  strikes 
''against  the  alleged  promotion  of  a  piecer  out 
of  his  turn. ' '  The  Railwaymen  in  1911  demanded 
that  length  of  service  should  ''have  primary  con- 
sideration in  all  cases  of  promotion."  It  is  quite 
in  line  with  the  Webb  statement,  however,  that  it 
has  been  a  civil  service  union,  that  of  the  Postal 
and  Telegraph  Clerks  (now  a  part  of  the  amalga- 
mated Union  of  Post  Office  Workers),  that  has 
been  most  insistent  in  urging  the  establishment  of 
the  seniority  rule.  Their  leaders  defend  the  prin- 
ciple (which  they  would  admit  to  be  "finally  inde- 
fensible" if  they  were  really  controlling  the  serv- 
ice) on  the  ground  that  "you  don't  need  a  Napo- 
leon" for  each  little  job. 

There  have  been  other  demands,  not  for  the 
establishment  of  a  rigid  principle  of  seniority,  but 
for  some  sort  of  joint  control.    The  Railway  Re- 


PROMOTION  113 

view,  the  official  organ  of  the  National  Union  of 
Railwaymen,  argues  for  joint  control  by  the  crea- 
tion of  **  staff  committees  by  whom  all  appoint- 
ments and  promotions  should  be  made."  The 
Postal  and  Telegraph  Clerks  had  been  fighting 
for  the  inclusion  of  promotion  among  the  subjects 
over  which  the  Postal  Joint  Industrial  Council 
is  to  have  jurisdiction.  In  1917,  a  resolution  was 
carried  at  their  convention  that,  *Hhe  Association 
shall  have  free  access  to  the  official  records  of  its 
members,"  in  order  that  cases  of  injustice  might 
be  contested;  and,  in  the  course  of  discussion,  a 
member  remarked  that  he  **  imagined  that  even 
now  the  Executive  got  in  cases  of  promotion 
occasionally. ' '  Their  claim  is  partly,  though  very 
guardedly,  met  by  the  Provisional  Joint  Committee 
on  the  Application  of  the  Whitley  Report  to  the 
Administrative  Departments  of  the  Civil  Service, 
which  recommended  in  its  report  of  May  28, 
1919,  that  the  question  of  promotion  should  be 
provided  for  as  follows  in  the  constitution  of  the 
Joint  Industrial  Council: — 

(1)  The  National  Council  should  determine  the 
general  principles  governing  promotion,  but  should  not 
consider  individual  cases. 

(2)  The  Departmental  Councils  should  be  allowed  to 
"discuss  any  promotion  in  regard  to  which  it  is  repre- 
sented by  the  staff  side  that  the  principles  of  promotion 
accepted  by  or  with  the  sanction  of  the  National  Council 


114         THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

have  been  violated.  To  ensure  satisfactory  working  or 
this  arrangement  steps  will  have  to  be  taken  to  acquaint 
the  staff  with  the  nature  of  the  accepted  principles  of 
promotion. ' ' 

(3)     The  District  and  Office  (or  Works)   Committee 
are  not  to  discuss  promotion. 

The  rules  of  the  Federation  of  Weavers*  and 
Overlookers'  Amalgamations  (cotton)  attempt  to 
limit  promotion  to  union  members  by  providing, 
"that  no  encouragement  or  permission  shall  be 
given  to  any  weaver  to  learn  over-looking  who 
does  not  belong  to  his  trade  union."  There  are 
occasional  disputes  in  various  industries  over  the 
bringing  in  of  "outsiders"  to  supervisory  posi- 
tions instead  of  promoting  men  from  the  particu- 
lar shop.  Much  more  interesting  is  a  strike  of  the 
Glass  Bottle  Makers  "against  appointment  of  a 
manager  who  had  not  served  at  the  trade"  which 
was  settled  by  allowing  the  appointment  to  stand 
but  establishing  the  principle — "no  other  non- 
bottle  hand  to  be  employed  as  manager. ' '  A  strike 
of  Oldham  Tramwaymen  in  1911  "against  the 
employment  of  certain  officials,"  etc.  was  settled 
as  follows: — 

"Officials  not  to  be  dismissed,  but  further  vacancies 
to  be  open  to  the  men. ' ' 

A  similar  feeling  in  a  more  important  industry 
is    the   resentment   of    "practical"    railwaymen 


PROMOTION  115 

against  the  supervision  of  men  who  have  not  come 
up  through  the  ranks  but  have  come  in  from  out- 
side with  some  technical  training  and  are  taught 
practical  railwaying  by  the  men  over  whom  they 
are  shortly  to  be  put  in  authority.  I  have  heard 
this  bitterness  come  out  in  a  speech  by  a  Eailway- 
men's  official;  it  may  be  illustrated  by  these  ex- 
tracts from  the  Railway  Review : —  ^ 

"The  key  to  advancement  in  the  railway  industry 
service  beyond  a  strictly  limited  point  is  not  that  of 
knowledge,  or  ability,  or  diligence,  or  a  combination  of 
these  attributes.  It  is  rather  that  of  relationship  to 
persons  in  high  places;  the  public  school  accent;  the 
toney  manner;  a  mental  vision  frankly  and  avowedly 
anti-working  class.  .  .  .  And  since  the  gentry  in  the  top 
stories  of  the  building  make  all  the  laws  for  those  in  the 
basement  and  yet  have  had  little  or  no  experience  of 
basement  life  and  conditions,  there  must  necessarily  be 
trouble  and  unrest."  ^ 

These  examples  show  a  fairly  widespread  feel- 
ing that  promotion  is,  to  some  extent,  the  workers* 

*  In  quoting  these  I  am  concerned,  not  with  the  truth  of  the 
charges  made,  but  only  with  the  making  of  the  charges,  as  an 
indication  that  the  union  considers  the  regulation  of  promotion 
as  within  its  field  of  action. 

*  It  is  interesting  to  place  alongside  this  strenuous  demand  of 
the  railwaymen,  "  To  abolish  for  ever  the  inhibition  against  pro- 
motion of  wages  men  to  salaried  positions,"  the  suggestion,  made 
by  an  electrical  engineer,  that  this  same  "  principle  of  upward 
mobility "  of  labor  would  be  a  shrewd  way  to  "  diminish  the  de- 
mand for  democratic  control."  It  might  easily  be  argued  that 
the  greater  upward  mobility  of  labor  in  the  United  States,  or 
more  accurately  the  tradition  of  past  mobility  and  the  "log  cabin 
to  White  House"  careers,  accounts,  in  part,  for  the  slower  de- 
velopment of  control  demands  on  the  part  of  American  Labor. 


116         THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

business,  but  very  little  in  the  way  of  control,  ex- 
cept a  few  negative  safeguards  against  merely 
arbitrary  promotions.  The  subject  is  not,  how- 
ever, complete  without  turning  in  the  next  section, 
to  the  few  but  highly  interesting  cases  in  which 
the  workers  take  a  positive  part  in  regulating 
the  most  significant  form  of  promotion — the  choice 
of  foremen. 


VIII 

THE  CHOICE  OP  FOREMEN 

The  general  question  of  promotion  counts  for 
little  either  in  present  trade  union  policy  or  in  a 
study  of  control ;  promotion  to  the  position  of  fore- 
man or  to  other  grades  whose  duties  involve  direct 
supervision  is  very  close  to  the  center  of  the  prob- 
lem. The  immediate  issues  of  control  arise  in 
contact  with  the  foreman's  authority;  the  method 
of  his  selection  is  a  pivotal  issue.  The  common 
belief  that  no  employer  ever  yields  or  divides 
authority  on  this  point  is  not  true;  it  is  nearly 
enough  true,  especially  in  large-scale  industry,  to 
indicate  that  this  is  a  question  where  the  control 
issue  might  be  consciously  and  keenly  fought. 

Of  the  few  instances  in  which  the  workers  play 
a  decisive  part  in  the  choice  of  foreman,  the  little 
Stuff  Pressers'  Society  again  furnishes  the  best 
example,  though  it  is  apparently  losing  its  full 
right  of  election.  **The  foreman,"  says  the  ac- 
count already  quoted,  **is  selected  by  the  Society 
in  conjunction  with  the  employers  and  men. 
Formerly  the  men  made  the  selection,  this  being 
endorsed  by  the  Society,  which  then  recommended 
the  choice  to  tho  firm;  but  in  recent  years  this 

117 


118         THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

method  of  procedure  is  to  some  extent  falling  into 
abeyance,  due  largely  to  the  growth  in  power  of 
the  Bradford  Dyers'  Association.  .  .  .  The  re- 
lation of  the  foreman  to  the  firm  is  mainly  to  act 
as  contractor  in  behalf  of  the  men  .  .  .  Inside  the 
shop  the  foreman  works  at  his  table  like  the  rest 
of  the  men  whenever  his  duties  as  supervisor 
allow,  his  wages  being  determined  on  identical 
grounds  to  that  of  the  men  except  that  a  supple- 
mentary income  of  5%  is  paid  to  him  by  the  men 
for  his  services  as  supervisor.  .  .  .  This  fusion 
of  the  labor  forces  allows  no  opportunity  for  the 
antagonism  so  discernible  in  most  industries, 
where  the  foreman  acts  largely  as  the  'watch- 
dog' of  the  firm  .  .  .  The  salient  features  of  the 
organization  are,  then,  first  a  democratically  con- 
trolled workshop,  against  which  principle  as  I 
have  indicated  above,  the  Trust  is  threatening 
attack.  It  has  already  introduced  a  payment  to 
foremen. ' ' 

Another  small  union,  that  of  the  Spindle  and 
Flyer  Makers,  has  the  privilege  of  ** nomination" 
of  foremen  which  is  said  really  to  amount  to 
election;  and  there  are  one  or  two  other  small 
monopolistic  crafts  in  which  the  men  have  prac- 
tically their  own  way  in  the  matter.  The  Com- 
positors do  not  choose  their  own  foremen;  but 
the  ** father  of  the  chapel,"  their  shop  steward, 
performs  enough  supervisory  functions  for  the 


THE  CHOICE  OF  FOREMEN  119 

firm  so  that  lie  is  in  effect  an  elected  snb-foreman; 
and  the  ''clicker"  chosen  by  a  ** companionship " 
or  team  of  compositors  to  do  their  bargaining 
with  the  firm  and  to  allot  piece  work  might  also 
be  thought  of  as  an  elected  supervisor — in  very 
much  the  same  sense  as  the  stuff  pressers'  fore- 
man. But  these  are  in  reality  not  more  than 
quite  natural  extensions  of  the  control  easily  exer- 
cised by  skilled  gangs  engaged  in  collective  work. 
**When  the  work  is  carried  on,  not  by  individual 
craftsmen  but  by  associated  groups  of  highly 
skilled  wage-earners,  it  is  practically  within  the 
power  of  these  groups"  (to  extend  a  remark  of 
the  Webbs)  to  control  the  immediate  workshop 
arrangements.  This  again  is  not  very  far  from 
the  practice  of  ''co-operative  work"  which  T>.  F. 
Schloss  defined  in  1891^  as  involving  three 
principles,  of  which  the  second  is  of  interest 
here : — 

(1)  Workers  associated  by  free  choice. 

(2)  Workers  under  a  leader  elected  and  removable  hy 
themselves. 

(3)  Pay  divided  among  members  of  group  on  princi- 
ples recognized  by  themselves  as  equitable. 

He  gave  interesting  examples  of  this  practice, 
but  they  were  for  the  most  part  only  on  the  very 
fringes  of  "the  great  industry,"  in  such  indus- 

^Methodg  of  Industrial  Remuneration. 


120         THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

trial  pockets  as  the  Cornish  tin  mines,  and  the 
practice  has  since  his  time  fallen  still  further  into 
disuse.  Both  these  examples  of  co-operative  work 
and  the  examples  of  election  of  foremen  referred 
to  here  are  taken  from  a  sort  of  industry  in  which 
it  is  possible  for  the  foreman  to  be  a  fellow- worker 
with  his  men  and  to  represent  them  in  bargain- 
ing as  well  as  to  supervise  their  work.  They 
amount  in  effect  to  a  democratic  form  of  sub- 
contract, and  together  with  other  forms  of  sub- 
contract they  seem  to  be  giving  away  before  the 
standardizing  process  of  large-scale  modern  in- 
dustry. 

There  is,  then,  some  body  of  experience  of 
trade  union  control  over  the  choice  of  foremen  in 
a  number  of  the  older  crafts.  Is  there  any  trade 
union  control  over  the  choice  of  foremen  in  ''the 
great  industry"  itself,  in  the  modern  large-scale, 
carefully- regimented  industries  where  the  strain 
of  superintendence  is  the  greatest?  The  answer 
can  be  almost  a  direct  ''no."  I  have  been  able  to 
find  no  instance  in  which  the  workers  in  modern- 
ized industry  have  either  the  recognized  right  of 
election  of  foremen  or  the  formal  right  of  veto- 
ing an  unpopular  selection.  Instances  even  of 
consultation  over  the  choice  are  extremely  rare, 
even  in  cases  where  the  works  committees  dis- 
cuss a  fairly  wide  range  of  subjects.  Messrs. 
Hans  Eenold,  Ltd.,  chain  manufacturers  with  a 


THE  CHOICE  OF  FOREMEN  121 

large  factory  just  outside  Manchester,  make  a 
practice  of  announcing  the  choice  of  a  foreman  to 
the  shop  stewards '  committee  and  explaining  their 
reasons  for  it  before  publication  of  the  announce- 
ment. Messrs.  Rowntree  &  Sons,  Ltd.,  at  their 
cocoa  works  at  York,  allow  this  discussion  to  take 
place  before  the  decision  is  actually  reached  and 
(presumably)  allow  it  to  influence  the  decision. 
Their  precise  rule  on  this  point,  which  was  adopted 
by  their  Works  Council  in  the  spring  of  1919 
after  the  workers '  side  had  brought  in  a  proposal 
which  came  much  nearer  direct  election,  is  as 
follows : — 

' '  That  before  any  person  is  appointed  as  an  overlooker, 
the  name  of  such  person  shall  be  submitted  to  a  Com- 
mittee of  the  workers  on  the  Department  Council,  but 
the  final  decision  regarding  the  appointment  will  con- 
tinue to  rest  with  the  Director  of  the  Department. ' ' 

These  very  minor  exceptions  are  perhaps  chiefly 
of  importance  as  showing  how  definite  a  princi- 
ple it  is  in  the  constitutional  theory  of  modern 
industry — if  there  is  any  such  thing — that  the 
workers  are  excluded  from  any  control  over  the 
choice  of  their  supervisors. 

It  is  impossible,  however,  to  break  oif  the  dis- 
cussion at  this  point  for  two  reasons: — First, 
there  is  already  an  organized  opposition  to  this 
theory — the  desire  for  a  say  in  the  choice  of  fore- 
men is  a  serious  factor  in  the  demands  of  labor. 


122  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

Second,  the  theory,  like  other  constitutional 
theories,  in  practice  does  not  at  all  work  out  to 
the  letter— the  workers  have  now  more  say  in  the 
choice  of  foremen  than  any  formal  agreement  sug- 
gests. The  best  evidence  on  the  first  point — that 
the  choice  of  foremen  has  already  become  to  some 
extent  an  open  question — is  the  discussion  in  the 
Works  Committees  report  of  the  Ministry  of 
Labor : — 

"The  appointment  of  foremen  is  a  question  on  which 
there  may  be  said  to  be  three  groups  of  opinions.  Many 
employers  hold  that  it  is  purely  a  management  question. 
The  opposite  extreme  to  this  is  the  claim  made  by  a  con- 
siderable section  of  Trade  Unionists  that  the  workmen 
should  choose  their  own  foremen.  A  position  inter- 
mediate to  these  two  extremes  is  taken  up  by  a  certain 
number  of  employers  and  by  a  section  of  workpeople; 
the  appointment  (they  feel)  should  be  made  by  the 
management,  but  it  should  be  submitted  to  the  Works 
Council  before  it  becomes  effective.'  Even  this  intermedi- 
ate position,  however,  is  not  really  a  common  position; 
there  are  differences  of  opinion  as  to  the  conditions  under 
which  the  appointment  should  come  before  the  Works 
Committee — that  is  to  say,  whether  or  not  the  Works 
Committee  should  have  power  to  veto  the  appointment." 
(pp.  33-34) 

Mr.  Cole  and  other  Guild  Socialists  speak  of  the 
election  of  foremen  as  *'one  of  the  next  steps." 
The  principle — or  a  step  towards  it — has  been  em- 
bodied in  several  schemes  suggested  by  groups 


THE  CHOICE  OF  FOREMEN  123 

of  workers.  One  suggestion  now  being  elabo- 
rated is  that  of  a  panel  system — ^under  which  the 
workers'  committee  should  nominate  a  list  of 
candidates  for  a  vacancy  from  which  the  employer 
should  choose  one.  Messrs.  Gallacher  &  Paton 
of  the  Clyde  engineering  shop  stewards,  have  sug- 
gested^ a  system  of  **  collective  contracts" 
under  which  ''the  Convenors  of  the  Works 
Committee  and  the  Departmental  Committee 
would  gradually  but  surely  drive  out  and  sup- 
plant the  Works  Manager  and  Departmental 
Foreman."  Many  such  proposals  make  a  dis- 
tinction between  officials  who  are  primarily  ''man- 
managers,"  whose  chief  duty  is  the  supervision 
of  workers,  and  those  who  are  primarily  tech- 
nicians; and  it  is  with  the  choice  of  the  former 
that  the  schemes  are  concerned.  On  the  other  hand, 
a  detailed  set  of  proposals  for  the  future  control 
of  the  mines,  put  forward  by  the  same  group  of 
extremists  who  wrote  the  Mmers'  Next  Step,  in- 
sists that  even  the  definitely  technical  officials 
should  be  directly  elected,  with  the  proviso  that 
candidates  must  possess  the  technical  certificates 
of  qualification  now  necessary.  "The  one  essen- 
tial condition  of  our  plan  is  the  democratic  elec- 
tion of  all  officials."  It  is  not  worth  while  to 
set  out  these  schemes  in  detail  at  this  point ;  they 
are  referred  to  as  an  evidence  of  an  articulate 

*  See  below,  p.  173,  and  Note  on  Sources. 


124         THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

opposition  to  the  exclusion  of  workers  from  a 
say  in  the  choice  of  their  supervisors. 

It  is  more  important  to  point  out  that  the 
workers  do  often  actually  exercise  more  power 
over  the  choice  of  foremen  than  any  agreement 
suggests.  At  one  Manchester  motor  works  a 
particularly  active  shop  stewards'  committee  had 
been  making  trouble  for  a  succession  of  foremen ; 
finally  the  firm  in  despair  said,  * '  Choose  your  own 
foreman,  then,"  and  they  did.  This  is  only  an 
extreme  instance  of  a  sort  of  control  which  is  not 
uncommon.  At  the  height  of  their  power  during 
the  war,  the  Clyde  shop  stewards,  while  they 
claimed  no  right  to  choose  foremen,  could  ''make 
it  impossible"  for  an  unpopular  foreman.  The 
extent  to  which  the  workers  make  it  impossible  for 
foremen  to  whom  they  object — and  therefore 
exercise  a  clumsy  and  delayed  but  real  and  very 
important  veto  over  the  choice  of  foremen— will 
be  considered  in  Section  X.  It  was  of  veto  in  their 
sense  rather  than  of  veto  by  formal  right  that 
Mr.  Cole  spoke  in  his  testimony  before  the  Coal 
Commission : — 

'  *  The  extent  to  which  trade  unions  exercise  an  amount 
of  control  over  the  selection  of  foremen  negatively  by 
veto  is  increasing  very  fast."    (Question  13169) 

And  it  is  this  sort  of  veto  that  makes  the  most 
important  limit  to  the  power  of  the  employer  to 
select  supervisors  at  will. 


THE  CHOICE  OF  FOREMEN  125 

**  Control  over  employers,  foremen,  etc.  .  .  . 
is,"  said  D.  F.  ScMoss,  ** aimed  at  by  the  essen- 
tial principles  of  Trade  Unionism. ' '  Yet  workers ' 
control  over  foremen  by  direct  election  is  practi- 
cally non-existent  in  the  great  industry.  This, 
however,  by  no  means  exhausts  all  possible  forms 
of  control  in  the  field.  There  are  at  least  two 
further  methods  by  which  the  workers  exert  con- 
trol over  their  supervisors, — first,  by  pressure 
through  the  trade  union  if  the  supervisor  belongs 
to  the  same  or  to  a  friendly  union;  and  second, 
by  the  refusal  to  work  under  intolerable  super- 
vision or  objectionable  supervisors.  These 
methods  of  control  will  be  the  subjects  of  the  next 
two  sections. 


IX 

THE  ORGANIZATION  OF  FOREMEN 

The  organization  of  foremen,  like  all  questions  of 
trade  union  structure,  is  of  interest  for  this  in- 
quiry only  as  it  affects  trade  union  function 
in  the  direction  of  control.  But  it  is  evident  that 
the  extent  of  control  by  workers  over  their  im- 
mediate supervisors  depends  in  part  on  the  an- 
swers to  the  questions: — Are  these  supervisors 
organized  at  all?  Are  they  organized  in  the  same 
unions  as  the  workers  under  them?  Are  they 
organized  in  separate  unions?  And  are  these 
last  friendly  or  hostile  to  the  other  unions? 

Trade  union  practice  in  regard  to  the  inclusion 
of  foremen  within  the  same  unions  as  the  workers 
under  them  is  varied  and  is  complicated  by  a 
number  of  motives.  The  ''friendly  benefit"  side 
of  trade  unionism  tends  to  hold  a  man  in  his  union 
after  he  has  been  promoted  to  the  foreman's  job. 
Conscious  trade  union  policy  on  the  question  has 
been  affected  by  two  contradictory  principles: — 

Don't  trust  them:  Capture  them. 

The  idea  behind  the  former  is  that  the  workman 
by  accepting  promotion  has  stepped  across  a  defi- 

126 


THE  ORGANIZATION  OF  FOREMEN       127 

nite  line  and  has  become  the  employer's  man. 
From  that  time  on  he  is  bargaining  for  the  em- 
ployer and  against  the  worker;  therefore  he  must 
not  be  trusted  with  any  news  of  the  workers' 
plans.  He  is  the  **guv'nor's  man"  and  therefore 
no  longer  ''safe."  The  natural  outcome  of  this 
feeling  is  to  exclude  foremen  from  the  union,  or  at 
least  to  let  them  remain  only  as  honorary  mem- 
bers or  for  purposes  of  friendly  benefit,  as  the 
Glass  Bottle  Workers  do  by  their  rule  that  *'a 
walking  manager  may  remain  a  member  of  the 
society,  but  shall  not  be  allowed  to  attend  any 
meetings  without  being  specially  summoned." 
This  attitude  has  been  the  general  one  in  the  past. 
** Foremen,  deputies,  superintendents,  and  the 
like,"  writes  Mr.  Cole,^  "are  naturally  for  the 
most  part  promoted  from  the  ranks  of  the  Trade 
Union  Movement.  .  .  It  is  true  that  throughout 
the  history  of  Trade  Unionism  a  certain  number 
of  such  promoted  workmen  have  retained  their 
connection  with  their  Trade  Unions  in  a  more  or 
less  private  manner,  by  being  attached  to  Cen- 
tral Office  Branches,  and  by  other  similar  de- 
vices ;  but  even  where  this  has  been  the  case  they 
have  usually  lost  all  share  in  the  government  of 
their  Societies." 

The  opposing  idea  is  that  having  your  foreman 
in  your  own  union  is  a  good  way  of  making  sure 

'  G.  D.  H.  Cole,  An  Introduction  to  Trade  Unionitm,  p.  72. 


128  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

that  he  won't  treat  you  unjustly.  The  public 
opinion  of  the  union  is  counted  on  to  enforce  upon 
its  supervising  numbers  a  standard  of  decency 
in  the  treatment  of  subordinates.  D.  F.  Schloss 
gave  the  example  of  the  London  Stevedores 
where — **If  a  foreman  does  not  give  all  the  men 
a  fairly  equal  chance  of  employment,  the  trade 
union  committee  may  punish  him  by  suspension. '  * 
The  Brass  Workers  have  a  definite  rule  for  con- 
trolling their  foreman  members ; — 

"A  member  who  is  a  journeyman,  foreman,  charge- 
hand  or  piece  worker  [i.e.  subcontractor]  shall  not  have 
under  his  control  or  supervision  or  employ  any  person 
above  the  age  of  18  who  is  not  a  member  of  the  society, 
and  to  whom  he  does  not  pay  the  minimum  rate  of  the 
district. ' ' 

A  thousand  Glasgow  Dockers  struck  in  1911  on 
the  demand  that  a  foreman  should  join  the  union, 
and  carried  their  point.  Sub-foremen  are  in- 
cluded in  the  compulsory  unionism  agreements 
of  the  Dyers,  and,  in  a  number  of  unions — no- 
tably the  Dyers  and  Miners — it  is  not  uncommon 
for  foremen  and  even  a  few  managers  to  belong 
to  the  men's  union. 

In  this  case  the  object — where  there  has  been  a 
conscious  object — has  been  to  ''capture"  the  fore- 
men for  quite  immediate  purposes.  Those  who 
are  propagandists  for  extensions  of  workers '  con- 


THE  ORGANIZATION  OF  FOREMEN       129 

trol  are  much  more  strongly  in  favor  of  the  in- 
clusion of  foremen  within  the  unions  as  a  step 
towards  full  trade  union  management  of  industry. 
A  correspondent  writing  to  the  Amalgamated 
Society  of  Engineers  Journal  puts  their  argu- 
ment vigorously: — 

"On  this  point  [amalgamation  with  the  other  en- 
gineering unions  and  the  control  of  the  industry]  we 
are  all  so  cordially  unanimous  that  there  seems  nothing 
left  to  do  in  the  matter  except  amalgamate  and  take  con- 
trol. May  I  suggest  that  we  have  a  long  row  to  hoe 
yet,  and  that  we  members  of  the  A.S.E.  have  not  yet 
done  all  we  might  to  strengthen  our  own  organization. 
.  .  .  Any  member  of  our  society  who,  because  of  his 
ability,  is  entrusted  with  a  position  of  responsibility,  is 
no  longer  to  be  helped  by  the  A.S.E.  .  .  .  The  foremen 
are  being  induced  by  employers  to  join  subsidized 
mutual  organizations  of  one  kind  or  another  in  order 
to  set  them  as  a  class  apart  from  the  ordinary  working 
trade  unionist.  Some  of  them  still  realize  that  they  are 
workers  in  the  best  sense  of  the  word  and  have  interests 
in  common  with  other  producers.  ...  I  would  suggest. 
Sir,  that  it  is  of  the  utmost  importance  that  we  should 
in  any  measure  of  control  of  industry,  have  the  active 
support  of  foremen  and  staff  men  generally." 

The  various  lines  of  policy  taken  by  employers 
on  this  question  have  also  some  bearing  on  the 
question  of  control.  An  early  policy  was  simply 
that  of  forbidding  membership  in  trade  unions. 
This  was  the  attitude  of  the  railway  companies 


130  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

in  1907,  before  the  great  increase  in  railway 
unionism.  It  is  clearly  expressed  in  the  memo- 
randum from  one  of  the  companies  to  a  certain 
Inspector  Rawlinson,  transferring  him  to  another 
position  without  loss  of  pay: — 

"As  a  member  of  the  Amalgamated  Society  of  Rail- 
way Servants,  you  cease  to  be  a  free  agent,  and  you  can- 
not be  permitted  to  have  the  control  and  supervision  of 
men  who  are  not  members  of  the  society  or  members  of 
some  other  society.  You  cannot  serve  two  masters. 
There  is  no  desire  to  punish  you,  but  the  Company's 
staff  and  the  Company's  business  must  be  protected." 

Even  in  1911,  a  high  official  of  one  of  the  roads, 
testifying  before  a  government  coromission, 
threatened  that  ''non-unionists  would  have  to  be 
chosen"  for  the  work  of  some  of  the  supervisory 
clerks  which  was  "more  or  less  of  a  confidential 
nature."  Less  drastic  expressions  of  this  feeling 
are  the  agreements  secured  by  the  employers  to 
the  effect  that,  ''The  National  Association  of 
Operative  Plasterers  will  not  take  any  steps  to 
compel  men  regularly  employed  as  foremen  or 
superintendents  to  become  members  of  the  N.  A. 
0.  P. ; "  and,  in  bookbinding,  that  the  Society  will 
not  call  out  on  strike  a  foreman  who  has  held  his 
position  for  twelve  months. 

Another  policy  of  certain  employers  has  been  to 
encourage  separate  unions  for  foremen  and  other 


THE  ORGANIZATION  OP  FOREMEN      131 

isupervisors  by  way  of  keeping  them  out  of  the 
more  dangerous  trade  unions.  This  may  mean, 
as  it  does  in  the  engineering  and  heavy  steel 
trades,  a  Foremen's  Benefit  Society,  heavily  sub- 
sidized by  the  employers,  which  the  foremen  are 
urged  or  compelled  to  join.  One  object  of  this 
is  explained  by  the  Vice-President  of  the  Joint 
Institute  of  Engineers,  Mr.  Alex.  Richardson,  in 
The  Mem-Power  of  the  Nation  (p.  77) : — 

"So  long  as  foremen  continued  trade  unionists,  they 
could  not  exhibit  independence,  and  the  employers  there- 
fore acted  wisely  in  establishing  foremen's  societies, 
which  conferred  on  members  the  superannuation  and 
other  benefits  they  had  to  forfeit  upon  severing  their 
connection  with  the  trade  unions.  That  was  a  move 
in  the  direction  of  inculcating  habits  of  thought  different 
from  those  of  the  ordinary  workmen. ' ' 

The  same  attitude  may  mean  less  definite  forms 
of  encouragement  to  a  separate  union.  The  Pot- 
tery Officials'  and  Managers'  Union  came  about 
in  this  way: — The  operatives'  society  had  organ- 
ized a  section  of  under-managers  and  foremen, 
had  secured  a  war  bonus  for  them,  and  had  fought 
a  reinstatement  case  for  one  of  its  manager-mem- 
bers. The  employers  then  announced  that  they 
would  be  glad  to  recognize  a  separate  officials' 
union,  and  the  foremen — with  the  exception  of 
those  in  the  firm  affected  by  the  reinstatement 


132         THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

strike — left  the  workers'  society  and  joined  the 
new  union.  The  two  unions  are  now  friendly 
enough;  but  in  the  Joint  Industrial  Council  the 
foremen's  union  has  just  been  granted  two  seats, 
not  on  the  workers'  side,  as  has  been  suggested 
in  certain  other  industries,  not  on  an  independ- 
ent ''cross  bench,"  as  they  had  asked,  but  on  the 
employers'  side. 

The  history  of  these  two  policies  on  the  part 
of  employers  was  condensed  in  the  deliberations 
of  the  Provisional  Joint  Committee  of  the  Na- 
tional Industrial  Conference,  which  reported  on 
April  4,  1919.  The  question  of  foremen  came 
up  as  an  obstacle  to  agreement  on  ''full  and 
frank"  recognition  of  trade  unions  as  the  basis 
of  negotiation.  The  first  proposal  of  the  em- 
ployers was  that  workers  "in  positions  of  trust 
or  confidentiality"  should  be  definitely  excluded 
in  the  recommendation  for  recognition  of  unions. 
Their  second  proposal  was  that  separate  unions 
of  foremen,  secretaries,  etc.  should  be  recognized 
but  that  the  right  of  ordinary  trade  unions  "to 
speak  and  act  on  behalf  of"  their  foremen  mem- 
bers 'Should  not  be  conceded.  The  Committee 
nearly  failed  to  reach  unanimity  but  finally  agreed 
on  the  following  formula: — 

"The  machinery  [for  settling  disputes]  should  also 
contain  provisions  for  the  protection  of  the  employers' 


THE  ORGANIZATION  OF  FOREMEN       133 

interests  where  members  of  trade  unions  of  work  people 
are  engaged  in  positions  of  trust  or  confidentiality,  pro- 
vided the  right  of  such  employers  to  join  or  remain  mem- 
bers of  any  trade  union  is  not  thereby  affected." 


It  is,  of  course,  by  no  means  true  that  sepa- 
rate unions  of  supervisors  are  always  or  neces- 
sarily hostile  to  the  other  trade  unions.  The  Na- 
tional Foremen's  Society,  recently  formed  in  the 
engineering  and  allied  trades  in  opposition  to  the 
Foremen's  Benefit  Society,  claimed  in  July,  1919 
a  membership  of  2,000.  Its  policy  is  definitely 
trade  union  and  includes  the  obligation  not  to 
do  ''blackleg"  work  in  case  of  strikes  by  the  men 
working  under  its  members.  The  South  Wales 
Colliery  Officials'  Union  is  affiliated  to  the  South 
Wales  Miners'  Federation,^  although  in  many 
districts  there  has  been  considerable  friction  be- 
tween the  Miners '  Federation  and  separate  organ- 
izations of  Under-managers,  Deputies,  or  Master 
Hauliers.  The  Federation  of  Weavers  *  and  Over- 
lookers '  ^  Amalgamations  in  the  cotton  industry- 
has  already  been  mentioned  as  a  genuine  labor 
alliance.  In  this  case  there  is  an  unusual  form 
of  control  over  supervision;  if  a  woman  weaver 
complains  of  a  bullying  overlooker,  the  matter  is 

•  Coal  Commission  Evidence.    Question  18192. 

•  The  overlookers  in  the  textile  industries  are  not  strictly  com- 
parable to  foremen  in  other  industries.  They  are  primarily  me- 
chanics and  only  incidentally  supervisors. 


134  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

adjusted  between  the  two  unions  concerned.  The 
Power  Loom  Overlookers  are  represented  on  the 
workers'  side  of  the  Joint  Industrial  Council  in 
the  woolen  trades,  and  a  London  Union  of  Clerical 
Workers  and  Builders'  Foremen  has  applied  for 
representation  with  the  workers  in  the  Building 
Trades  Parliament.  The  largest  of  all  unions  of 
supervisors  and  clerical  workers,  the  Railway 
Clerks '  Association,  which  is  rapidly  extending  its 
organization  into  the  higher  grades  *  works  as  an 
ally  of  the  National  Union  of  Eailwaymen  and  has 
been  conspicuous  in  demanding  workers'  control. 
The  organization  of  foremen,  then,  involves  in 
some  cases  an  indirect  but  genuine  control  by  the 
workers  over  the  conduct  of  their  supervisors.  Its 
extension  is  clearly  in  the  policy  of  certain  groups 
of  workers  who  are  consciously  aiming  at  control. 
And  certain  employers  have  attempted  either  to 
prevent  the  process  of  organization  or  to  divert 
it  into  separate  and  exclusive  channels  in  the  fear 
of  just  that  sort  of  control. 

*  By  a  recent  agreement  between  the  R.  C.  A.  and  the  Com- 
panies there  are  now  only  some  two  hundred  of  the  higher  rail- 
way olBcials  in  the  country  who  are  held  to  be  ineligible  to  be 
members  of  and  be  represented  by  the  railway  unions. 


THE  STANDARD  OF  FOREMANSHIP 

WoRKEKs'  choice  of  foremen  is  rare;  the  effect  of 
organization  of  foremen  on  workers'  control  is 
real  but  indirect.  The  most  important  means  by 
which  workers  exercise  control  over  their  super- 
visors is  simply  that  of  the  strike  or  threat  of 
strike  when  supervision  becomes  unbearable.  The 
effective  power  of  this  form  of  control  is  usually 
underestimated  since  it  is  difficult  to  detect  and 
define  and  can  hardly  be  embodied  in  a  formal 
agreement.  But  in  proportion  to  the  strength  of 
the  trade  union,  it  represents  a  real  veto,  if  not 
actually  over  the  choice,  at  least  over  the  re- 
tention of  foremen — and  a  real  regulation  of  their 
actions. 

Mr.  R.  H.  Tawney  sums  up  the  situation  as 
"autocracy  checked  by  insurgence;"  the  present 
point  is  that  there  is  a  great  deal  of  insurgence. 
Some  sense  of  this  may  be  gained  by  going 
through  the  official  Reports  on  Strikes  and  Lock- 
outs.^ In  1912  there  were  thirty-two  disputes  re- 
ported as  caused  by  objections  to  certain  foremen ; 
in  1913,  25   disputes   involving   10,500  workers. 

*  See   Note  on   Sources. 

135 


136  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

The  reports  of  causes  read  like  these: — '* al- 
leged harassing  conduct  of  a  foreman,"  "alleged 
tyrannical  conduct  of  an  under-forewoman,'* 
** alleged  overbearing  conduct  of  officials."  The 
award  in  a  recent  arbitration  case  details  the 
charges  against  an  unpopular  under-manager  as 
**  indifference  to  and  want  of  consideration  of 
suggestions  made  to  him  by  workers  in  connec- 
tion with  their  work  and  improvements;  uncivil, 
inconsiderate,  harsh  and  autocratic  treatment, 
and  neglect  to  properly  consider  their  claims  as 
regards  both  employment  and  remuneration;  and 
the  preference  of  friends  and  relatives."  And 
among  the  results  of  the  strikes,  along  with  numer- 
ous dismissals  and  resignations  of  the  officials  in 
question,  there  are  occasional  agreements  that, 
* '  the  men  must  be  treated  with  proper  respect  and 
threats  and  abusive  language  must  not  be  used," 
or  ''tyrannical  acts  to  cease." 

The  number  and  the  frequent  success  of  these 
strikes  indicates,  as  was  suggested  in  Section 
VIII,  a  considerable  trade  union  veto  over  the 
choice  of  foremen.  The  ' '  right  of  rejecting  as  fel- 
low-workers" may  often  become  the  right  of  re- 
jecting as  foremen.  This  alone,  however,  does  not 
sufficiently  emphasize  the  amount  of  trade  union 
pressure  effective  in  setting  a  standard  of  decent 
foremanship.  The  rules  of  the  British  Steel 
Smelters  provide  that  members  leaving  on  ac- 


THE  STANDARD  OF  FOREMANSHIP     137 

count  of  "unjustifiable  abuse  or  ill-treatment  from 
employer  or  foreman ' '  are  entitled  to  dispute  pay. 
The .  secretary  of  a  union  which  had  never  suc- 
ceeded in  securing  the  dismissal  of  a  bullying  fore- 
man was  nevertheless  sure  that  its  protests  were 
effective  as  warnings  to  foremen.  And  in  some 
trades  a  definite  standard  is  so  much  a  matter  of 
course  that  the  issue  rarely  arises.  The  Com- 
positors, for  example,  will  not  stand  for  what  is 
known  as  ''policing"  by  foremen  and  managers 
and  any  violation  of  the  code  is  immediately  re- 
ported to  the  union  for  action.  A  story  was  told 
me  by  a  former  miners'  agent  in  Lanarkshire 
illustrating  a  similar  standard  on  the  part  of  the 
Scottish  Miners.  In  a  case  arising  under  the 
Minimum  Wage  Act,  the  overman  was  called  upon 
to  testify  whether  or  not  a  certain  workman  did 
his  work  properly.  The  examination  was  as  fol- 
lows (in  free  translation  from  the  original 
Scotch) : — 

Overman:  "I  never  saw  him  work." 

Magistrate:  "But  isn't  it  your  duty  under  the  Mines 
Act  to  visit  each  working  place  twice  a  day?" 

"Yes." 

"Don't  you  do  it?" 

"Yes." 

"Then  why  didn't  you  ever  see  him  work?" 

"They  always  stop  work  when  they  see  an  overman 
coming,  and  sit  down  and  wait  till  he's  gone — even  take 


188         THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

out  their  pip^  if  it's  a  mine  free  from  gas.    They  won't 
let  anybody  watch  them." 


An  equally  extreme  standard  was  enforced  for  a 
part  of  the  war  period  at  a  Clyde  engineering 
works.  The  convenor  (chairman)  of  shop 
stewards  was  told  one  morning  that  there  was  a 
grievance  at  the  smithy.  He  found  one  of  the 
blacksmiths  in  a  rage  because  the  managing  di- 
rector, in  his  ordinary  morning's  walk  through 
the  works,  had  stopped  for  five  minutes  or  so  and 
watched  this  man's  fire.  After  a  shop  meeting 
the  convenor  took  up  a  deputation  to  the  director 
and  secured  the  promise  that  it  should  not  happen 
again.  At  the  next  works  meeting  the  convenor 
reported  the  incident  to  the  body  of  workers — 
with  the  result  that  a  similar  standard  came  into 
effect  throughout  the  works,  and  the  director 
hardly  dared  stop  at  all  on  his  morning's  walk. 
Much  of  the  feeling  in  struggles  for  the  recog- 
nition of  unions  (long  since  secured  in  the  better- 
organized  trades  and  conceded  in  principle  at 
least  for  all  by  the  unanimous  recommendations 
of  the  National  Industrial  Conference)  was  due 
to  the  workers'  desire  to  have  someone  outside  the 
control  of  the  immediate  employer  to  represent 
them  on  just  these  questions.  This  finds  very 
definite  expression  in  the  dispute  that  occasionally 
arises  over  the  trade  union  ofiicial's  claim  of  the 


THE  STANDARD  OF  FOREMANSHIP     139 

right  to  enter  the  works  in  order  to  investigate 
disputes.  This  has  been  paralleled  during  the  war 
by  the  frequent  claim  of  the  shop  steward  or 
of  the  covenor  (chairman)  of  shop  stewards  or  of 
the  chairman  of  the  Works'  Committee  for  free- 
dom to  go  into  any  department  of  the  works  to 
investigate  a  grievance.  An  amusing  story  was 
told  me  of  the  way  this  right  was  won  in  one  of 
the  Clyde  ship-building  works: — The  convenor 
had  begun  to  exercise  the  right — and  to  go 
freely  from  shop  to  shop  as  disputes  arose — 
without  the  permission  of  the  management.  The 
manager  then  ordered  him  to  stop  and  to  stay  at 
his  own  machine.  The  convenor  obeyed,  but  ar- 
ranged for  a  grievance  to  occur  the  next  morn- 
ing in  the  shop  farthest  from  his  own.  The 
steward  from  that  shop  came  to  him  with  word 
of  the  grievance.  **I  can't  leave  my  work." — 
*'But  it's  important." — **How  many  men  in- 
volved?"— ''200."—**  I  don't  dare  leave  my  ma- 
chine. Tell  them  to  come  to  me. "  And  so  the  200 
men  walked  the  length  of  the  works,  gathered 
round  the  convenor's  machine  while  he  kept  on 
with  his  work,  and  discussed  the  dispute.  The  re- 
sult— in  the  prevailing  shortage  of  labor — was  the 
concession  of  the  privilege.  But  the  fighting  of 
the  same  issue  in  another  works,  with  Mr.  David 
Kirkwood  as  the  shop  steward  in  question,  led  to 
the  deportation  of  the  Clyde  strike  leaders  in  1916. 


140  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

The  shop  stewards'  agreement  of  December,  1917, 
between  the  engineering  employers  and  certain  of 
the  engineering  unions  provided  that: — 

"In  connection  with  this  agreement  shop  stewards 
shall  be  afforded  facilities  to  deal  with  questions  raised 
in  the  shop  or  portion  of  a  shop  in  which  they  are  em- 
ployed. In  course  of  dealing  with  these  questions  they 
may,  with  the  previous  consent  of  the  management  (such 
consent  not  to  be  unreasonably  withheld) ,  visit  any  other 
shop  or  portion  of  a  shop  in  the  establishment.  In  all 
other  respects  shop  stewards  shall  conform  to  the  same 
working  conditions  as  their  f ellow- workmen. " 

The  Works  Committees  report  of  the  Ministry 
of  Labor  states  that,  "from  the  experience  of 
several  works  ...  it  would  appear  that  this  free- 
dom of  movement  is  found  to  be  an  essential  con- 
dition of  the  success  of  a  committee."  The  vari- 
ous elaborate  methods  of  procedure  for  the 
presentation  of  grievances  by  trade  union 
officials  or  shop  stewards,  whether  embodied  in 
long-standing  collective  agreements  or  in  recent 
constitutions  of  works  committees  (as  well  as  the 
various  provisions  for  securing  for  the  aggrieved 
individual  the  *' principle  of  the  open  door"  to 
the  higher  management)  are  beside  the  present 
point.  The  interesting  thing  for  our  purpose  is 
that  they  involve  a  recognition  that  grievances  of 
this  sort  are  within  the  field  of  action  of  the 


THE  STANDARD  OF  FOREMANSHIP      141 

workers'  representatives.  An  editorial  in  The 
Post  (the  journal  of  the  Postmen's  Federation) 
of  March  8,  1918,  emphasized  as  one  of  the  chief 
functions  of  the  shop  steward  his  duties  in  *'a 
case  of  petty  spite  or  constant  bullying  from  an 
overseer  or  a  foreman. "  '  ^  It  would  appear, ' '  says 
the  Works  Co^nmittees  report,  *Hhat  a  Works 
Committee,  if  it  is  to  be  of  any  value  in  ventilat- 
ing and  removing  grievances,  must  be  in  a  position 
to  ventilate  grievances  arising  from  the  conduct  of 
foremen  and  overlookers.  Such  grievances  touch 
the  worker  most  closely  in  his  daily  work."  The 
case  already  referred  to  at  Reuben  Gaunt 's,  Ltd., 
in  which  a  foreman  charged  with  bullying  was 
tried  by  a  joint  body  representing  the  manage- 
ment and  the  workers,  is  a  definite  embodiment  of 
this  principle. 

These  are  still  only  partial  indications  of  the 
importance  of  grievances  against  foremen  in  trade 
union  activity.  The  union  may  try  to  secure  the 
discharge  of  an  arbitrary  foreman ;  the  union  may 
secure  consideration  of  its  grievances  against  him 
by  peaceful  means.  But  frequently  the  resent- 
ment merely  smolders  and  breaks  out  on  other 
issues.  This  feeling,  whether  or  not  it  appears 
on  the  face  of  the  workers'  demands,  is  un- 
doubtedly, as  the  secretary  of  an  employers'  as- 
sociation told  me,  "at  the  bottom  of  some  of  the 
bitterest  strikes."     A  correspondent  writing  to 


142         THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

the  Times  during  the  railway  dispute  of  1907 
declared  that: — 

"The  whole  cause  of  these  continued  disturbances 
is  due  to  the  authority  and  petty  tyranny  exercised  by 
the  foremen,  who  are  nothing  less  than  despots  and 
slave-drivers.  * ' 

And  the  Commission  on  Industrial  Unrest  in 
1917,  in  analyzing  the  unrest  in  South  Wales, 
said:— 

1 

"We  must  also  recognize  the  fact  that  the  Welsh 
collier,  even  though  possibly  addicted  to  bluntness  of 
speech  in  conversation  with  his  fellow-workmen  is  quick 
to  resent  any  ebullition  of  temper  or  violence  of  language 
towards  himself  on  the  part  of  those  placed  in  authority 
over  him.  .  .  .  Much  avoidable  friction  is  due  to  lack  of 
self-control  in  language  and  temper  and  want  of  tact 
generally  on  the  part  of  officials,  though  circumstances 
may  often  be  such  as  to  test  them  severely  in  this 
respect. '  * 

The  control  exercised  by  trade  unions  over  the 
actions  of  foremen  is  a  real  and  continuous  thing, 
though  it  gains  public  notice  only  when  it  is  fought 
for  in  a  strike.  It  is  not  of  course  argued  that 
this  control  is  wholly  different  from  the  modicum 
of  control  exercised  by  any  body  of  men  under 
supervision,  whether  organized  or  unorganized. 
The  manager  who  sees  that  a  certain  foreman 


THE  STANDARD  OF  FOREMANSHIP      143 

fails  to  get  the  best  work  out  of  his  men  because 
he  is  unpopular  and  so  replaces  him  is  to  that 
extent  "controlled"  by  the  dislikes  of  the  workers. 
Moreover,  any  group  of  men,  no  matter  how  help- 
lessly situated,  enforces,  if  only  by  nagging  and 
sulkiness,  some  sort  of  standard  of  treatment  from 
its  overseers — a  standard  which  I  was  made  to 
feel  very  definitely  in  a  few  days'  service  as  a 
prison  guard.  The  most  accurate  literary  ex- 
pression of  this  group-standard,  in  The  Code  by 
Robert  Frost,  is  written  of  the  completely  unor- 
ganized ** hired  men"  of  the  New  England 
farms : — 

"The  hand  that  knows  his  business  won't  be  told 
To  do  work  faster  or  better-;-these  two  things." 

But  from  the  individual  hired  man,  working 
alongside  the  small  farmer  in  the  hurry  to  get  in 
the  hay  before  a  rain  and  defending  his  **code" 
by  simply  thrusting  his  pitchfork  into  the  ground 
and  marching  himself  off  the  field,  it  is  a  long 
way  to  the  action  of  the  whole  body  of  workers 
in  a  great  engineering  establishment  or  in  a  group 
of  coal  pits  scattered  up  and  down  a  Welsh  val- 
ley, no  individual  of  whom  is  of  any  particular 
importance  to  the  employer,  nevertheless  enforc- 
ing by  their  collective  power  a  certain  level  of 
personal  treatment  when  one  foreman  has  vio- 
lated the  code  in  respect  to  one  worker.    No  one 


144         THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

claims  that  trade  unionism  is  mere  knight  erran- 
try, that  a  high  recklessness  over  obscure  and 
delicate  points  of  honor  leads  to  lack  of  caution 
in  regard  to  trade  union  funds  or  the  interests  of 
trade  union  members.  Even  the  authors  of  the 
Miners'  Next  Step,  for  all  their  insistence  on  fight- 
ing individual  grievances  that  involve  principles, 
recommend  as  a  point  of  tactics  that : — 

"Whenever  it  is  contemplated  bringing  any  body  of 
men  out  on  strike,  demands  must  be  put  forward  to 
improve  the  status  of  each  section  so  brought  out." 

But  the  extent  to  which  decent  foremanship  may 
be  felt  to  be  a  matter  of  union  and  inter-union  con- 
cern is  suggested  by  the  description,  in  the  annual 
report  of  the  Furnishing  Trades  Association  for 
1917,  of  joint  action  by  the  metal  and  woodwork- 
ing trades  in  an  aircraft  factory: — 

"A  mass-meeting  of  all  sections  made  it  quite  clear 
that  they  were  determined  to  insist  that  any  attempt  to 
treat  any  group  of  men  without  regard  to  their  feelings 
or  self-respect  would  be  treated  as  a  challenge  to  all  the 
unions,  and  as  such  would  be  taken  up  and  replied  to  by 
a  general  stoppage  of  work.  They  demand  the  right  to 
work  under  a  manager  who  will  treat  them  as  men  inside 
the  shop." 

A  standard  of  foremanship,  or  at  least  a  stand- 
ard of  manners  in  foremen,  enforced  in  the  more 


THE  STANDARD  OF  FOREMANSHIP      145 

spectacular  cases  by  striking  for  the  foreman's 
dismissal  but  also  by  other  methods  of  steady 
pressure,  is  as  real — though  less  definite  and  pos- 
sibly less  universal — a  subject  of  trade  union  regu- 
lation as  the  standard  of  wages  itself. 


XI 
SPECIAL  MANAGERIAL  FUNCTIONS 

The  last  three  sections  dealt  with  the  relation  of 
labor  to  its  supervisors.  This  section  deals  with 
the  relation  of  labor  to  certain  special  functions 
of  supervision,  usually  thought  of  as  the  business 
of  foremen  or  managers  but  sometimes  exercised 
by  the  workers. 

The  first  of  these  is  the  enforcement  of  minor 
discipline.  There  is,  as  the  Ministry  of  Labor 
reports,  **a  considerable  body  of  experience"  of 
the  exercise  of  disciplinary  functions  by  works 
committees.  The  experience  to  which  that  report 
refers  falls,  however,  entirely  into  two  classes, — 
oases  of  administering  bonus  schemes  under 
which  deductions  are  made  for  various  offences, 
and  cases  of  enforcing  special  war-time  discip- 
line under  the  power  or  the  threat  of  the  Muni- 
tions of  War  Act.  In  a  typical  instance  of  the  first, 
a  joint  committee  meets  monthly  to  assess  the 
fines  incurred  for  the  following  offences : — 

"a.  Insubordination,  or  use  of  improper  language. 
b.  Undue  carelessness  and  wilful  damage, 
e.  Neglect    to    enter    goods,    advices,    time    cards, 
dockets  or  time  sheets." 

146 


SPECIAL  MANAGERIAL  FUNCTIONS      147 

The  war  emergency  cases  are  more  interesting. 
The  Munitions  of  War  Act  of  1915  and  the  regula- 
tions issued  under  its  authority  by  the  Ministry 
of  Munitions  put  discipline  in  the  *' controlled 
establishments  "  ^  on  a  basis  totally  different  from 
peace  conditions.  Violations  of  a  firm's  posted 
rules  were  subject  to  prosecution  in  special  courts, 
the  munitions  tribunals,  in  which  a  chairman  ap- 
pointed by  the  Ministry  acted  as  judge  with  an 
equal  number  of  assessors  representing  the  em- 
ployers and  the  trade  unions.  This  method  was 
in  many  cases  felt  by  both  parties  to  be  a  nuisance, 
and  various  experiments  in  joint  discipline  were 
tried.  The  Whitehead  Torpedo  Works,  in  sug- 
gesting a  joint  scheme  to  its  employees,  said: — 

"There  is  a  class  of  rules,  offences  against  which  are 
punishable  by  a  fine  of  half  a  crown  dismissal,  or  a 
prosecution  under  the  Munitions  Act.  None  of  these 
penalties  is  a  convenient  one.  Fines  are  as  much  dis- 
liked by  the  firm  as  by  the  men ;  dismissal  entails  the  loss 
of  services  which  may  be  badly  needed;  and  prosecu- 
tions entail  great  waste  of  time  and  may  produce 
more  evils  than  the  original  ones  they  are  meant  to 
cure. ' ' 

* "  If  the  Minister  of  Munitions  considers  it  expedient  for  the 

fmrpose  of  the  successful  prosecution  of  the  war  that  any  estab- 
ishment  in  which  munition  work  is  carried  on  should  be  subject 
to  the  special  provisions  as  to  limitation  of  employers'  profits 
and  control  of  persons  employed  and  other  matters  contained  in 
this  section,  he  may  make  an  order  declaring  that  establishment 
to  be  a  controlled  establishment."  Munitions  of  War  Act, 
1915,  Part  II,  Section  4. 


148  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

Some  committees  were  reluctant  to  take  on 
themselves  the  responsibility  and  unpopularity  of 
punishing  their  fellows;  those  that  accepted  it 
probably  did  so  with  the  feeling  that  the  special 
war  powers  of  the  employer  made  punishment 
inevitable  and  that  this  was  a  way  of  making  it 
reasonable.  In  one  remarkable  case  a  Works 
Tribunal — not  a  joint  committee  but  a  chairman 
and  a  jury  of  twelve  elected  wholly  by  the  work- 
ers— exercised  authority  over  these  matters  and 
is  said  to  have  brought  about  great  improvement 
in  discipline  and  timekeeping. 

"Bad  timekeeping,"  by  the  way — i.e.  irregular 
attendance  at  work — wa's  the  most  important  of- 
fence which  came  under  this  sort  of  discipline. 
Special  joint  committees  to  deal  with  this  prob- 
lem were  set  up  at  the  suggestion  of  the  Ministry 
of  Munitions  in  the  ironworks  of  Cleveland  and 
Durham.  The  duties  and  powers  of  the  local 
committees  were  defined  as  follows  in  the  Cleve- 
land rules: — 

"  (a)  To  inquire  fully  into  every  ease  brought  by  the 
Manager  of  the  Works  of  alleged  bad  timekeeping  on 
the  part  of  any  workman  employed  at  the  works  under 
his  charge. 

(b)  To  give  warning  and  advice  to  any  workman  who 
may  appear  to  need  it. 

(c)  To  inflict  subject  to  the  provisions  of  the  Truck 
Acts,  such  penalty  or  fine  as  in  the  judgment  of  the  Com- 


SPECIAL  MANAGERIAL  FUNCTIONS      149 

mittee  the  case  shall  merit,  such  fine  not  to  exceed 
twenty  shillings  in  any  one  instance. 

(d)  In  the  case  of  repeated  offences,  to  transmit 
the  facts  and  evidence  to  the  judgment  of  the  Cen- 
tral. 

(e)  In  the  event  of  the  Works  Committee  being 
equally  divided  on  any  case  [wliich,  it  may  be  added,  is 
said  to  have  happened  very  rarely]  the  same  shall  be 
submitted  to  the  Central  Committee  for  decision. 

(f)  Each  Works  Committee  shall  have  power  to  re- 
duce or  remit  altogether  any  fine  imposed  by  the  Com- 
mittee, if  the  offender's  conduct  during  the  four  weeks 
succeeding  the  hearing  of  his  case  justifies  any  variation 
in  the  original  penalty." 

All  these  cases  were  under  the  direct  power  of 
the  Munitions  of  War  Act,  and  accepted  only  for 
its  duration.  The  only  further  extension  of  this 
principle  was  in  the  Absentee  Committees  of  the 
Miners,  which  in  their  development  as  Output 
Committees  were  one  of  the  most  interesting  by- 
products of  the  war  and  will  be  discussed  in  a 
later  chapter.  Much  the  same  argument,  however, 
was  used  while  the  Miners  were  discussing  the 
question  of  assuming  responsibility  for  the  at- 
tendance of  their  members.  **If  we  don't  accept 
it,  we  may  be  put  under  the  Act.  Then  there'll 
be  punishment  anyway;  we  had  better  see  that 
it's  done  justly."  The  ** appeal  to  all  mine 
workers"  for  good  timekeeping,  issued  as  a  plac- 
ard by  the  Yorkshire  Miners,  read  in  part: — 


150  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

"Fellow  Workers:  This  appeal  is  made  to  prevent 
more  drastic  measures  being  brought  to  bear  upon  our 
great  industry  by  the  Government." 

"It  is  a  line  of  punishment  by  your  own  men," 
said  one  of  the  Miners'  leaders,  ''and  if  the  men 
have  no  confidence  in  their  own  men  who  have 
been  selected  from  their  own  branch,  whom  can 
they  have  confidence  in?" 

A  second  of  these  special  managerial  functions 
is  that  of  providing  for  the  safety  of  the  workers. 
Here  it  is  naturally  the  Miners  that  have  needed 
and  secured  the  greatest  extent  of  control.  The 
Mines  Acts  of  1911  and  earlier  give  the  workers 
power  to  appoint  an  inspector  of  their  own  to 
make  a  complete  examination  of  the  machinery 
and  workings  as  often  as  once  a  month  and  also 
to  make  examination,  in  company  with  a  legal  ad- 
viser or  with  a  mining  or  electrical  engineer,  after 
an  accident.  How  much  this  privilege  means  in 
practice  is  hard  to  estimate,  and  probably  varies 
greatly  from  district  to  district.  A  correspon- 
dent writing  to  the  Colliery  Engmeman  claims 
that  it  means  very  little  in  Cumberland : — 

"The  Act  which  enables  mine- workers  to  appoint  a 
person  to  periodically  inspect  every  part  of  the  mine, 
ventilating  apparatus,  machinery,  etc.,  has  been  allowed 
to  remain  a  dead  letter  at  most  of  the  collieries  in  this 


SPECIAL  MANAGERIAL  FUNCTIONS      151 

coalfield.  One  of  the  chief  reasons  for  this  has  been 
that  if  the  persons  elected  as  local  inspectors  give  an 
adverse  report,  the  management  would  soon  find  some 
means  of  getting  rid  of  them.  ...  It  is  not  uncommon 
to  be  told  by  mine-workers  that  their  mine  has  not  been 
examined  by  local  inspectors  for  10  years.  During  the 
inquiry  into  the  Senyhenyd  explosion,  1911,  in  which 
439  men  and  boys  lost  their  lives  it  came  out  in  evi- 
dence that  the  miners  had  not  inspected  the  mine  for 
18  months.  The  reason  the  men  gave  was  that  no  man 
dared  to  give  a  true  report." 

On  the  other  hand  a  South  Wales  leader  declared 
that : — 

"In  many  parts  of  the  South  Wales  coalfield,  the 
workmen  themselves  have  appointed  practical  exam- 
iners, and  these  men  are  doing  very  excellent  work,  in 
my  opinion,  preventing  accidents." 

but  advocated  that  these  examiners  be  empowered 
to  prosecute  the  owners  for  violations.  Even  as 
the  law  stands,  however,  it  implies  a  definite 
statutory  recognition  of  the  right  of  the  workers 
to  take  an  active  and  independent  part  in  the 
prevention  of  accident. 

The  Miners'  Federation  also  claims  responsi- 
bility for  the  clauses  in  the  Mines  Act  which  set 
the  qualifications  of  the  firemen,  examiners,  and 
deputies — the  officials  directly  entrusted  with 
safety  functions.  Here  again  the  miners  claim 
that  these  men  have  not  dared  to  report  faithfully 


152         THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

the  conditions  for  fear  of  the  employers.  At  their 
1917  Conference,  the  Miners'  Federation  passed 
the  following  resolution  in  order,  as  they  claimed, 
to  secure  for  the  men  in  these  positions  a  combi- 
nation of  the  fearlessness  of  the  government  in- 
spector and  the  knowledge  of  the  practical 
miner:— 

"That  it  would  be  conducive  to  the  best  interests  of 
the  miners  that  firemen,  examiners,  and  deputies  should 
be  appointed  by  the  workmen  and  paid  by  the  State." 

The  report  of  the  Commission  on  Industrial  Un- 
rest in  South  Wales  (1917)  recommended  that 
the  appointment  and  dismissal  of  those  officials 
should  be  entrusted  to  joint  committees.  Certain 
of  the  Deputies'  Associations  favored  the  oppo- 
site— state  control  and  appointment — in  order  to 
secure  freedom  from  pressure  from  either  side. 
The  Miners  have  also  exerted  a  considerable 
negative  control  over  safety  arrangements  by  re- 
fusing to  work  under  conditions  they  thought 
dangerous.  There  are  a  number  of  references  to 
these  "safety  strikes"  scattered  through  the  evi- 
dence before  the  Coal  Commission.  One  of  the 
more  specific  occurs  in  the  testimony  of  Mr.  Win- 
stone  of  the  South  Wales  Miners'  Federation: — 

**Q.  Was   there   a  stoppage  in   Monmouthshire  re- 
cently ? 
A.  Yes. 


SPECIAL  MANAGERIAL  FUNCTIONS      153 

Q.  Do  you  mind  telling  us  the  nature  of  the  stoppage! 

A.  The  stoppage  took  place  at  the  Risca  Colliery  in. 
Monmouthshire  where  15,000  men  were  idle  for  several 
days  owing  to  a  danger  arising  from  gas,  a  shortage 
of  timber,  and  the  dukie  rope  cutting  into  the  timber 
and  cutting  through  the  rails. 

Q.  That  is  what  we  could  call  a  safety  strike? 

A.  Yes.  Then  at  the  Bedwas  Mine  the  men  are  out 
today  because  of  a  safety  stoppage.  The  owners  de- 
clined to  stall  the  place,  and  the  men  were  fearing  that 
a  crush  would  take  place,  and  so  they  stopped." 

These  disputes  are  not  only  interesting  as  in- 
dicating a  degree  of  present  control  but  as  often 
furnishing  the  background  for  further  demands 
for  control.  A  miner  who  had  been  discharged 
from  a  Scotch  colliery  for  refusing  to  work  in  a 
place  which  he  considered  dangerous  explained 
his  case  in  great  detail  and  with  diagrams  in  a 
leaflet  addressed  to  his  fellow-workers  at  the 
colliery  and  reprinted  in  The  Worker  (Glasgow) 
of  September  27, 1919.  The  moral  which  he  drew 
was  this : — 

"If  I  lost,  it's  you  who  have  lost,  for  you  will  have 
lost  the  right  to  decide  yourselves  about  the  safety 
of  your  own  place.  My  idea  is  that  we  should  demand 
that  chocks — hard  wood  chocks — should  be  put  in  every 
loosened  place  and  kept  up  with  the  face.  That  as  soon 
as  possible  we  should  appoint  pit  committees  to  con- 
trol the  method  of  working;  this  would  guarantee  more 
safety  to  the  coal  getter." 


154  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

The  same  feeling  was  expressed  as  a  part  of 
the  official  policy  of  the  Miners'  Federation  by 
Mr.  Robert  Smillie  in  the  course  of  a  deputation 
to  the  Prime  Minister,  on  October  9,  1919,  to  de- 
mand nationalization  and  joint  control: — 

*  *  The  miners  put  forward  their  claim  primarily  on  the 
question  of  safety." 

The  Miners,  then,  have  considerable  power,  both 
legal  and  actual,  over  the  safety  of  the  mines  and 
are  pressing  vigorously  for  further  control.  There 
is  in  the  other  industries  no  case  of  workers*  con- 
trol over  safety  to  compare  with  this.  It  is  true 
that  in  many  industries  there  are  Factory  Act  reg- 
ulations— often  secured  in  part  by  trade  union  agi- 
tation— and  even  occasional  provisions  for  inspec- 
tors appointed  by  workpeople ;  but  in  practice  they 
apparently  involve  little  or  no  trade  union  action. 
There  is,  however,  at  least  one  interesting  case  of 
the  beginnings  of  joint  control.  A  joint  sub- 
committee of  the  Builders '  Parliament  in  conjunc- 
tion with  representatives  from  the  Whitley  Coun- 
cils in  the  other  wood-working  industries  and  in 
consultation  with  the  manufacturers  of  wood- 
working machines,  has  made  a  study  of  the  dan- 
gers arising  from  the  use  of  wood-working  ma- 
chinery. Its  report  of  August  14,  1919,  contains 
a  series  of  detailed  suggestions  intended  as  a  basis 
for  further  regulations  under  the  Factory  Acts. 


SPECIAL  MANAGERIAL  FUNCTIONS      155 

A  third  and  less  important  special  function  of 
supervision  occasionally  exercised  by  the  workers 
is  that  of  the  allocation  of  work,  i.e.  the  distribu- 
tion within  a  given  group  of  workers  of  the  par- 
ticular jobs  or  working  places.  The  question  is  of 
some  importance  in  many  piece-work  trades,  and 
there  is  much  complaint  among  the  miners  and 
others  that  favoritism  in  assigning  working-places 
and  jobs  is  used  as  a  covert  method  of  victimiza- 
tion. There  are  very  few  cases,  however,  in  which 
complaint  has  gone  over  into  control.  Lord  Gain- 
ford,  the  chief  representative  of  the  coal-owners, 
told  the  Coal  Commission  of  the  system  in  effect 
in  the  Durham  coalfield : — 

"In  our  county  at  the  end  of  every  quarter  the  men 
ballot  amongst  themselves  for  the  different  positions 
in  the  mines.  The  men  as  a  rule  are  allowed  to  select 
their  own  working  mates,  and  they  go  into  the  place 
which  has  been  selected  by  ballot." 

The  printers  furnish  the  best  example  of  control 
under  this  head;  a  ''companionship"  (team)  of 
compositors  on  piece  work  has  the  right  to  appoint 
its  own  ''clicker"  who  distributes  the  work  so  as 
to  divide  equitably  "the  fat"  {i.e.  work  on  which 
good  money  can  be  made) .  It  is  probable  that  in 
many  trades  there  are  occasional  instances  of  in- 
formal control  of  this  sort,  as,  for  example,  at  a 
certain  "pot-bank"  in  which  the  equalization  of 


156  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

work  between  one  team  (of  jiggerer,  turner,  and 
handler)  and  another  is  arranged  by  the  men.  A 
writer  in  the  Railway  Review  suggests  that  **  allo- 
cations of  turns  of  duty"  are  a  field  for  joint  or 
workers'  control  to  replace  what  he  calls  the  "in- 
competency and  want  of  foresight  and  arrange- 
ment on  the  part  of  petty  ofl&cials, ' '  and  suggests 
that  '*at  each  depot  ...  a  representative  of  the 
men  might  be  periodically  chosen  to  regulate  these 
turns  of  duty. "  The  issue  is  even  more  important 
in  the  case  of  the  street  railways,  where  the  real 
irksomeness  of  the  working  day  depends  not  so 
much  on  the  number  of  hours  actually  worked  as 
on  the  ** spread-over  time"  between  the  beginning 
of  the  first  run  and  the  end  of  the  last.  The  mat- 
ter depends  almost  solely  upon  the  care  spent 
in  arranging  the  working  schedules,  and  the  tram- 
waymen  in  Leeds  and  other  parts  of  Yorkshire 
have  recently  won  a  substantial  concession  in 
securing  the  right  to  be  consulted  in  any  change 
of  these  schedules — a  right  which  at  the  time  of 
the  last  change  amounted  in  substance  to  the  actual 
working-out  of  the  schedules  by  the  union  ofiicials 
and  a  large  increase  in  the  percentage  of  con- 
tinuous runs. 

The  fourth  of  these  special  functions  of  manage- 
ment is  that  of  the  measurement  of  results. 
There  are  instances  of  a  degree  of  control  by 


SPECIAL  MANAGERIAL  FUNCTIONS      157 

workers  over  the  two  matters  of  measurement  of 
quantity  (where  the  pay  is  based  on  the  amount 
of  output  of  the  individual  or  the  works),  and 
measurement  of  quality  (where  deductions  are 
made  from  the  pay  for  spoiled  work).  The  best 
known  and  longest  established  case  under  the  first 
head  is  that  of  the  miners '  checkweighman.  By  a 
law  of  1887  (which  strengthened  a  law  of  1860) 
a  majority  of  miners  in  each  pit  may  appoint  a 
representative  to  watch  the  weighing  of  the  coal 
at  the  pit's  mouth  and  to  keep  an  accurate  check 
on  the  recording  of  each  man's  work,  and  the 
checkweighman 's  pay  is  deducted  from  the  wages 
of  all  the  coal-getters  who  are  paid  by  weight. 
A  strike  of  120O  men  in  1913  ''against  raising  and 
tipping  coal  after  the  fixed  hour  and  in  absence 
of  checkweighman,"  is  an  indication  that  this 
right  is  felt  to  be  an  important  one ;  the  incidental 
result  of  the  arrangement,  in  providing  a  means 
of  support  for  Miners'  Federation  officials,  has 
been  exultantly  pointed  out  by  the  Webbs  and 
others.  A  bill  extending  this  practice  to  certain 
other  industries, — iron  and  steel  works,  the  docks, 
limestone  and  chalk  quarries,  etc. — ^was  intro- 
duced by  the  Labor  Party  and  passed  by  the  pres- 
ent Parliament.  This  is  a  case  of  the  right  to 
safeguard  the  earnings  of  the  individual  piece 
worker.  A  slightly  different  situation  is  that  in 
which  the  payment  depends,  not  on  the  output  of 


158  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

the  individual,  but  on  that  of  the  works.  In  the 
Durham  coke-ovens  the  pay  is  based  on  the  aver- 
age weight  of  coke  produced  by  the  ovens.  The 
agreement  in  regard  to  the  "Ascertainment  of 
Yield"  is  as  follows: — 

"That  for  the  purpose  of  correctly  ascertaining  the 
average  weight  of  coke  produced  per  oven  at  any 
yard  either  party  may  require  that  the  coke  be 
weighed  .  .  .  the  men  to  have  the  liberty  to  send  a 
man  to  inspect  and  take  a  copy  of  the  weighings  of 
coke  as  recorded  in  the  weighman's  book." 

A  check  on  the  judgment  of  quality  is  important 
in  a  few  of  the  smaller  trades,  in  which  deductions 
are  made  for  spoiled  and  bad  work,  though  it  is 
obviously  a  more  difficult  matter  for  joint  or  trade 
union  action  than  a  simple  weighing  of  tons  of 
coal.  In  pottery  the  custom  of  paying  only  for 
ware  that  comes  "good  from  oven"  and  the  lack 
of  any  joint  means  of  assessing  the  fault  in  cases 
of  breakage  is  at  present  a  subject  of  dispute.  In 
nut  and  bolt  making,  there  is  the  rough  and  ready 
check  of  putting  all  rejected  work  on  the  scrap 
heap  in  the  presence  of  its  maker.  The  value  is 
assessed  and  agreed  upon  and  deducted  from  the 
maker's  earnings;  the  waste  is  then  his  property. 
The  elaborate  regulations  of  the  Yorkshire  Glass 
Bottle  Makers  for  determining  the  responsibility 
for  bad  work  are  worth  quoting,  if  only  as  in- 
dicating the  old-fashioned  nature  of  the  trade: — 


SPECIAL  MANAGERIAL  FUNCTIONS      159 

"That  bottles  picked  out  [rejected]  be  not  broken 
down  until  the  men  have  had  an  opportunity  of  inspect- 
ing them In  all  cases  of  bad  or  faulty  metal  the 

men  shall  immediately  send  for  the  manager  to  take 
the  responsibility.  .  .  .  Any  workman  commencing  to 
work  knowing  the  metal  to  be  bad,  without  skimming  it 
according  to  the  established  custom  of  the  trade,  or  fail- 
ing to  carry  out  the  conditions  herein  specified,  shall 
not  be  entitled  to  payment  for  the  bottles  put  out." 

The  Nottingham  lace  weavers  put  the  deter- 
mination of  the  fault  entirely  in  the  hands  of  the 
shop  committee: — 

"No  stoppage  [deduction]  shall  be  made  for  places 
caused  by  the  fault  of  the  machine.  .  .  .  Where  neglect 
of  the  workman  causes  extra  mending,  places  across  or 
spoiled  work,  and  where  a  workman  fails  to  carry  out 
written  instructions  in  a  workmanlike  manner  a  claim 
for  stoppage  may  be  made  by  the  employer,  but  all 
claims  must  be  supplied  in  writing  with  particulars  to 
the  shop  committee.  Unless  the  shop  committee  re- 
ceive such  particulars  and  consent  to  the  stoppage,  no 
stoppage  shall  be  made  and  the  employer  shall  be  left 
to  such  other  remedy  as  may  be  open  to  him." 

The  sum  of  duties  exercised  by  the  representa- 
tives of  the  workers  under  these  special  manager- 
ial functions  is  considerable.  THeir  importance  in 
a  study  of  control  is  lessened  by  two  facts: — the 
most  highly-developed  cases  of  the  enforcement 
of  discipline  were  definitely  for  the  war  emergency 


160         THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

in  fear  of  worse  things,  and  do  not  at  all  represent 
the  responsibilities  the  greater  number  of  trade 
unionists  are  ready  to  accept  under  peace  con- 
ditions ;  the  control  under  the  other  heads  is  almost 
entirely  a  mere  check  on  the  care  or  honesty  of  the 
employer  and  involves  little  independent  direction. 
The  exercise  of  the  disciplinary  function  was  then 
mainly  an  emergency  measure ;  the  other  functions 
might  be  more  accurately  spoken  of  as  check- 
managerial  than  managerial. 


xn 

METHODS  OF  PAYMENT 

The  last  section  clearly  raises  the  question  of  the 
methods  of  payment  of  wages.  The  issue  of  the 
amount  of  wages  falls  outside  our  definition;  the 
issue  of  the  method  of  payment,  however  *'im- 
mediate  to  the  wage  bargain  itself, ' '  is  too  closely 
bound  up  with  the  methods  of  control  to  be  com- 
pletely passed  by.  There  is  certainly  no  use  in 
attempting  to  go  over  all  the  ground  covered  by 
Mr.  D.  F.  Schloss's  Methods  of  Industrial  Re- 
mimeration  (1892,  1894  and  1898)  or  Mr.  G.  D.  H. 
Cole's  Payment  of  Wages  (1918).  The  object  is 
merely  to  show  how  the  arguments  for  and  against 
certain  methods  of  payment  are  colored  by  the 
struggle  for  control,  and  how  various  methods  of 
payment  have  given  rise  to  particular  attempts  at 
workers'  control. 

The  first  point  is  suggested  by  a  comparison  of 
the  two  books  mentioned.  Mr.  Schloss  declared 
that : — 

"In  regard  to  the  method  of  industrial  remuneration 
Trade  Unionism  does  not  propose  to  make  any  change 
whatever  in  the  arrangements  now  prevailing." 

161 


162  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

The  more  recent  movements  grouped  as  the 
''Demand  for  Control"  make  such  a  statement 
no  longer  possible.  Mr.  Cole's  book  is  in  fact 
largely  taken  up  with  the  arguments  for  and 
against  various  changes  which  trades  unionists 
(if  not  Trade  Unionism)  are  anxious  either  to 
make  or  to  prevent.  It  is  here  worth  while  merely 
to  mention  a  few  of  the  issues  to  indicate  the  com- 
plexity of  motives  and  their  bearing  on  "control" 
as  well  as  on  the  amount  of  wages.  The  various 
wood-working  trades,  for  example,  have  been  strik- 
ing or  agitating  for  the  abandonment  of  the  piece 
work  and  premium  bonus  systems  which  had  in 
some  cases  been  forced  upon  them  during  the  war. 
Here  the  issue  of  quality  of  workmanship — ^which 
the  workers  claim  is  sacrificed  under  piece  work — 
seems  to  be  more  real  than  in  most  trades,  though 
it  is  by  no  means  the  only  motive.  The  Carpenters' 
and  Joiners '  Journal  argues : — 

"That  employers  who  desire  the  best  class  of  crafts- 
manship put  into  any  kind  of  joinery  work,  never  re- 
quest joiners  to  adopt  premium  bonus  or  piece  work  sys- 
tems, because  all  men — employers  and  workmen  alike — 
recognize  that  either  of  the  above  named  systems  in- 
evitably leads  to  "rushing"  work,  therefore  necessarily 
"scamping"  work,  and  consequently  the  demoralizing 
effect  in  the  long  run  hinders  instead  of  assisting  in 
increasing  the  output  of  the  genuine  craftsman's  pro- 
duction. ' ' 


METHODS  OF  PAYMENT  163 

In  engineering  and  other  industries  a  guerrilla 
warfare  is  being  waged  over  the  introduction  and 
the  conditions  of  introduction  of  piece  work  and 
more  especially  of  premium  bonus  and  "efficiency'* 
systems.  The  general  argument  of  the  employers 
for  the  introduction  of  payment  by  results  is  that 
it  is  necessary  as  providing  an  incentive  for 
greater  production — a  way  to  ''speed  up"  the 
workers.  Some  of  them  favor  collective  payment 
by  results,  that  is,  payment  based  on  the  output 
of  the  whole  shop  or  works,  as  a  way  of  getting  the 
workers  to  ''speed  each  other  up" — which  recalls 
the  old  argument  for  profit  sharing  that  it  "makes 
every  workman  an  overseer."  The  motives  of  the 
workers  who  oppose  the  system  are  various — a  dis- 
taste for  being  speeded  up  and  the  past  experience 
and  fear  of  rate-cutting  are  among  the  chief.  A 
fairly  constant  argument  against  individual  piece 
work  in  many  industries  is  that  it  makes  collec- 
tive bargaining  harder  to  enforce  and  that  it  di- 
vides the  workers  against  themselves  instead  of 
making  for  the  "solidarity  of  labor," — that  is, 
as  the  Ironfotmders'  Journal  puts  it,  "That  it 
promotes  selfishness  in  the  workshop."  On  the 
other  hand  I  heard  a  printing  employer  argue  on 
just  the  same  ground  against  a  change  to  piece- 
work which  his  employees  wanted — that  it  would 
destroy  the  good  team  work  among  his  com- 
positors.   The  Miners'  Federation  at  its  1917  Con- 


164         THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

ference  passed  a  resolution  in  favor  of  the  aboli- 
tion of  piece  work;  but  a  vigorous  minority  in- 
sisted that  time  work  would  mean  much  more  irk- 
some supervision,  that  ''you  would  probably  want 
a  doggy  or  a  deputy  in  every  stall  to  see  that  the 
men  are  working  their  hardest."  Somewhat  the 
same  point  is  occasionally  put  in  the  statement 
that  the  workers  "feel  freer"  in  regard  to  attend- 
ance under  piece  work.  The  most  conspicuous  ad- 
vocates of  workers'  control,  including  Mr.  Frank 
Hodges  of  the  Miners  and  Mr.  Gr.  D.  H.  Cole,  are 
in  favor  of  time  work.^  With  that  opinion,  as 
it  applies  to  future  policy,  it  is  not  the  affair  of 
the  present  study  to  deal ;  from  the  historical  point 
of  view,^  one  fact  might  be  set  on  the  other  side, 
that  the  genuine  interest  of  the  miners  in  the 
problems  of  mine-management,  as  well  as  the 
favorable  attitude  of  the  cotton  operatives  toward 
improvements  in  machinery,  are  partly  traceable 
to  their  piece-work  systems.  In  any  case,  it  is 
clear  that  the  quarrels  over  methods  of  payment 
cannot  be  completely  disentangled  from  the  gen- 
eral question  of  the  control  of  industry. 

For  the  present  purpose,  however,  it  is  more 
useful  to  examine  the  specific  forms  of  control 
developed  or  advocated  in  connection  with  the 
methods  of  payment  now  in  force.    Most  of  the 

*  The  qualifications  which  Cole  would  attach  to  this  opinion 
are  stated  on  pp.  Ill  and  112  of  The  Payment  of  Wages. 


METHODS  OF  PAYMENT  166 

labor  arguments  for  time  work  are  negative,  that 
is,  arguments  that  piece  work  is  more  dangerous 
to  the  standard  rate;  therefore  it  is  no  surprise 
to  find  fewer  special  forms  of  control  under  pay- 
ment by  time.  The  only  case  I  know  of,  in  fact, 
of  the  exercise  by  workers  of  unusual  functions 
of  direction  under  any  sort  of  time  system,  is  that 
of  the  ''grading  system"  of  the  Birmingham  brass 
trades.  There  the  executive  of  the  National  Union 
of  Brass  Workers  grades  each  worker  according 
to  his  ability  and  places  him  in  one  of  seven  differ- 
ent classes,  for  each  of  which  a  minimum  wage  is 
set  by  collective  bargaining.  If  an  employer  chal- 
lenges the  qualifications  of  any  man,  a  practical 
examination  in  the  processes  of  the  trade  is  given 
him  by  the  managers  of  the  Municipal  Brass 
Trades  School. 

Piece  work  and  the  more  complicated  systems 
of  payment  by  results  naturally  show  more  in- 
stances of  union  activity,  if  not  a  greater  degree 
of  control,  over  the  methods  of  payment.  The 
difference  of  course  lies,  not  in  the  bargaining 
for  the  general  standard  of  wages,  but  in  the  ap- 
plication of  the  standard  rate  to  the  setting  of  par- 
ticular piece  rates  (or,  under  bonus  systems,  basic 
times)  for  particular  jobs  or  processes.  The  pro- 
cedure varies  much  more  widely  than  can  be  in- 
dicated here,  but  may  be  thought  of  as  falling  into 
two  broad  classes, — that  in  which  ''lists'*  or  agree- 


166         THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

ments  reached  by  formal  collective  bargaining 
cover  every  process  in  the  trade,  and  that  in  which 
the  setting  of  the  particular  price  is  more  or  less 
entirely  a  matter  between  the  employer  and  the 
individual  workman  or  immediate  groups  of  work- 
men concerned.  The  outstanding  example  of  the 
first  class  is  the  cotton  industry,  where  the  ex- 
pert secretaries  of  the  two  associations,  with  no 
motive  for  setting  a  new  price  in  a  single  mill 
either  above  or  below  the  general  standard  of 
Lancashire  and  with  a  strong  professional  pride  in 
the  correctness  of  their  mathematics,  have  little 
diflficulty  in  applying  the  elaborate  agreed  lists  to 
any  variation  of  speed,  pattern,  or  process.  Their 
greatest  difficulty  (aside  of  course  from  the  gen- 
eral level  of  wages),  has  been  the  ''bad  spinning" 
question,  i.e.  disputes  arising  from  the  claims  of 
workers  that  the  cotton  supplied  them  was  of  such 
bad  quality  that  they  could  not  make  the  standard 
rate  at  list  prices.  The  Brooklands  Agreement, 
which  was  the  chief  treaty  governing  the  industry, 
broke  down  in  1912  over  just  this  point,  the  em- 
ployers being  willing  to  admit  that  grievances 
under  this  head  should  be  promptly  discussed,  but 
refusing  to  accept  a  formal  agreed  test.  The  same 
issue  occasionally  occurs  in  other  industries;  in 
a  branch  of  the  woolen  trades,  it  is  settled  by  the 
following  arrangements : — 


METHODS  OF  PAYMENT  167 

"Should  any  dispute  arise  as  to  the  quality  of  the 
wool,  a  sample  shall  be  submitted  to  the  Bradford  Con- 
ditioning House  by  a  representative  of  the  workmen. 
Each  body  to  abide  by  the  decision  of  the  certificate,  and 
the  expenses  of  the  test  to  be  paid  by  the  party  found  to 
be  in  error." 

A  somewhat  parallel  difficulty  is  encountered  in 
coal-mining  in  settling  rates  for  ''abnormal 
places" — working  places  that  are  for  one  reason 
or  another  so  difficult  that  a  standard  wage  can- 
not be  earned  without  special  allowance.  The 
Miners'  Minimum  Wage  Act  of  1912  was  in  part 
intended  to  meet  this  problem  by  assuring  each 
man  a  wage  irrespective  of  his  place;  but,  since 
the  minimum  rates  are  in  all  cases  well  below  the 
normal  earnings  in  a  good  place,  the  question  still 
often  leads  to  serious  disputes.  These  are  usually 
fought  out  between  the  miners'  agents  and  the 
employer  and  involve  no  special  forms  of  control. 
One  South  Wales  colliery,  however,  works  on  the 
agreement  that: — 

"When  any  variation  in  the  conditions  of  any  work- 
ing place  or  places  occurs,  the  person  or  persons  work- 
ing in  such  places  shall  have  the  right  to  call  in  the  aid 
of  any  two  members  of  the  Workmen's  Committee,  to- 
gether with  two  Officers  of  the  Company,  in  order  to 
agree  upon  any  additional  rate  or  allowance  for  work- 
ing such  place  or  places. '  * 


168         THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

The  Commission  on  Industrial  Unrest  in  its  re- 
port on  South  Wales  recommended,  as  a  subject 
for  discussion  in  a  possible  Joint  Industrial 
Council,  ''the  right  of  the  men  with  the  employers 
to  select  an  equal  number  of  the  workers  engaged 
in  carrying  out  tests  in  new  seams  before  price 
lists  are  arranged." 

Bate-fixing  in  the  other  class  of  industries, 
those  not  covered  by  lists,  may  mean  anything 
from  purely  ''take-it-or-leave-it"  determination 
(whether  arbitrary  or  ''scientific")  by  the  em- 
ployer or  a  strictly  individual  bargain  to  fairly 
complete  though  informal  collective  bargaining. 
Engineering  is  the  storm  center  among  this  second 
class  of  industries  and  shows  the  widest  variations. 
The  principle  which  is  supposed  to  govern  it  is 
that  of  "mutuality": — 

"The  prices  to  be  paid  shall  be  fixed  by  irmtual  ar- 
rangement between  the  employer  and  workman  or  work- 
men who  perform  the  work. ' ' 

This  means  at  least  a  bargain;  the  worker  has 
the  right — which  may  or  may  not  mean  the  op- 
portunity—to say  no;  as  it  stands,  it  may  mean 
no  more  than  individual  bargaining.  Doubtless, 
however,  there  are  always  the  rudiments  of  a  col- 
lective bargain.  One  man's  acceptance  of  a  bad 
bargain  is  obviously  the  other  men's  loss,  and  the 


METHODS  OF  PAYMENT  .  169 

men  doubtless  talk  over  their  rates.  From  this 
informal  understanding  there  are  various  stages 
to  full  collective  bargaining.  Certain  unions  make 
regulations  that  their  men  shall  not  accept  rates 
below  those  set  ''by  a  majority  of  members  work- 
ing in  the  shops."  This  pricing  by  shopmates 
leads  naturally  to  the  election  of  a  shop  steward 
or  a  shop  committee  to  take  over  the  pricing  func- 
tion, a  step  of  great  importance  as  the  origin  of 
many  of  the  most  active  shop  committees.  This 
may  mean  within  the  shops  almost  as  complete  a 
standardization  as  in  the  price-list  industries,  par- 
ticularly if  the  steward  or  the  committee  keeps  a 
''book  of  prices"  with  which  to  compare  any  new 
prices  offered. 

The  situation  is  somewhat  different  in  those 
piece-work  and  premium  bonus  systems  in  which 
the  management  employs  a  special  scientific  rate- 
fixer  or  where  the  time  a  job  should  take  is  deter- 
mined in  a  special  time-study  office,  though  a  sim- 
ilar range  of  variations  in  procedure  occurs  here. 
The  whole  method  may  be  considered  merely  the 
firm's  business,  or  the  firm  may  be  willing  to  dis- 
cuss with  a  committee  the  methods  by  which  prices 
are  fixed  but  not  the  prices  fixed  in  individual 
cases.  On  the  other  hand  it  is  quite  possible  for 
scientific  price  fixing  to  co-exist  with  a  consider- 
able extent  of  joint  control.  On  just  this  point  it 
is  worth  while  to  quote  at  length  from  the  scheme 


170  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

and  experience  of  the  Phoenix  Dynamo  Company 
of  Bradford : — 

"One  of  the  greatest  objections  to  present  piece-work 
systems  is  that  the  employer  works  out  the  price  in 
secret,  writes  down  the  time  on  a  card,  and  this  settles 
the  price.  Now,  the  men  feel  that  payment  by  results 
is  a  bargain  and  that  it  is  not  within  the  province  of 
the  employer  to  state  arbitrarily  what  the  price  is  to 
be.  .  .  . 

On  getting  out  a  new  job  we  would  calculate  the  feeds 
and  speeds  which  were  suitable  for  the  tool  on  which  the 
job  was  to  be  performed,  and  then  put  forward  the  time 
we  offer ;  you  are  not  bound  to  accept  it  and  can  appeal 
if  you  like.  In  this  event  you  go  to  the  Time  Study 
Office,  where  the  man  who  has  dealt  with  the  job  will  go 
through  the  detail  of  his  calculations,  and  if  he  has 
made  a  slip  will  at  once  put  it  right. 

Our  time  fixing  is  not  infallible,  and  the  men  can 
help  us  by  pointing  out  errors.  If,  however,  we  are 
unconvinced  that  the  price  is  unreasonable,  and  the  man 
is  equally  unconvinced  that  it  is  reasonable,  he  can 
then  say,  *I  want  this  job  to  go  to  Committee'.  .  .  . 

The  Committee  consists  of  3  of  the  firm's  representa- 
tives and  3  workmen's  representatives  consisting  of  the 
man  concerned  and  2  workmen  selected  by  him  who  are 
operating  the  same  type  of  machine  or  whose  work  is 
closely  allied  to  the  work  in  question.  ...  In  the  event 
of  the  Committee  failing  to  agree  it  is  then  up  to  the 
firm  to  demonstrate  in  their  own  works  that  the  time 
is  fair  and  that  time  and  a  quarter  [over  the  guaran- 
teed time  rate]  can  be  made  on  it.  .  .  . 

The  surprising  part  of  the  scheme  over  the  period 


METHODS  OF  PAYMENT  171 

in  which  it  has  now  been  operating  is  the  very  small 
number  of  Committees  which  are  held.  It  would  appear 
that  a  very  stupid  workman  who  goes  to  the  Time  Study 
Office  to  argue  with  the  rate-fixer,  or  a  very  thick-headed 
rate-fixer,  are  either  of  them  rather  afraid  of  what  a 
Committee  would  decide  about  their  particular  case,  and 
so  whichever  party  feels  himself  to  be  technically  weak- 
est in  the  argument  appears  to  give  way. ' ' 

A  similar  arrangement  applies  by  agreement 
in  the  engineering  trade  at  Barrow.  This  is  prob- 
ably the  furthest  extent  of  joint  control  possible 
where  the  specialized  skill  is  still  entirely  the  prop- 
erty of  one  side.  The  Works  Committee's  pam- 
phlet already  quoted  reports  the  suggestion  from 
a  firm's  rate-fixer  that  a  desirable  next  step  would 
be  the  appointment  by  the  men  of  a  separate  rate- 
fixer  of  their  own — an  idea  already  in  opera- 
tion at  a  Bristol  engineering  works  in  which  the 
firm  pays  a  rate-fixer  who  is  chosen  by  the 
men. 

All  these  are  cases  of  individual  payment  by 
results.  But  collective  payment  by  results — where 
the  payment  is  based  on  the  production  of  a  group 
or  team  of  workers,  or  on  that  of  the  shop  or 
entire  factory — has  also  its  direct  and  important 
bearings  on  the  problem  of  control.  The  connec- 
tion between  collective  piece  work  and  control  in 
the  smaller  crafts  has  already  been  mentioned. 
Perhaps  it  is  worth  while  to  quote  again  the  rep- 


172  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

resentative  of  the  Stuff  Pressers  to  illustrate  the 
type:— 

"This  principle  of  collective  payment  throws  the  re- 
sponsibility upon  every  individual  to  contribute  his 
maximum  quota  to  the  whole.  It  has  almost  completely 
crushed  out  of  existence  the  practice  of  *ca-canny,'  for 
where  is  the  man  of  sufficient  courage  to  exercise  his 
genius  for  shirking  when  the  consequences  of  his  action 
would  be  to  bring  down  on  his  head  the  wrath  of  the 
shop?" 

At  the  present  time  workers  in  engineering  and 
other  industries  show  a  much  greater  readiness  to 
accept  collective  piece  work  or  a  collective  (shop 
or  works)  bonus  on  output  than  the  individual 
systems.  Nor  can  the  reason  be  put  quite  as  sim- 
ply as  by  the  director  of  a  steel  works  who  told 
me  that  the  reason  for  this  preference  was  that 
**it  didn't  show  up  the  rotters  as  quickly."  An- 
other side  is  put  in  the  resolution  in  favor  of  col- 
lective piece  work  passed  by  the  Weymouth  Joint 
Committee  of  Allied  Engineering  Trades  on  the 
ground  that,  "it  restores  the  old  collective  spirit, 
securing  collective  effort,  collective  interest  and 
harmony,  that  it  produces  evenness  of  earnings  in 
place  of  inequality. ' '  An  elaborately  safeguarded 
system  of  collective  piece  work  is  that  put  into 
force  by  the  Bradford  Dyers '  Association  in  1913, 
which  contained  the  following  clauses : — 


METHODS  OF  PAYMENT  173 

"The  Association  may  at  any  branch  introduce  pay- 
ment by  piece-work  rates.  All  piece  work  slmll  he  based 
on  collective  work  and  collective  payment.  .  .  . 

The  fixing  of  rates  and  the  arrangements  of  sets 
shall  be  mutually  agreed  upon  in  writing  by  representa- 
tives of  the  Associations  and  the  Unions.  Such  rates 
shall  be  so  fixed  as  to  enable  a  full  rated  man  to  earn 
not  less  than  7d.  per  hour.  .  .  . 

No  rate  or  set  shall  he  altered  witJiout  the  consent 
in  writing  of  the  Association  and  the  Union  or  Unions 
to  which  the  employees  {iffected  belong. 

Trials  of  three  calendar  months'  duration  shall  pre- 
cede the  final  settlement  of  rates." 

Under  this  system  the  "sets"  of  workers  are 
said  to  have  taken  an  increased  part  in  arranging 
their  own  work,  a  development  towards  control 
which  had  been  actively  in  the  mind  of  at  least 
one  of  the  Dyers'  leaders  who  had  advocated  the 
scheme. 

The  cases  already  quoted  perhaps  cover  most 
of  the  range  of  methods  of  payment  which  carry 
with  them  degrees  of  workers'  control  important 
in  the  present  industrial  system.  It  is  worth 
while,  however,  to  contrast  two  other  systems, 
which  imply  much  greater  control  by  the  workers, 
co-operative  work  and  collective  contract.  The 
former  was  quoted  by  D.  F.  Schloss  as  an  archaic 
dying  system  on  the  very  edges  of  modern  indus- 
try; the  latter  has  been  advocated  by  two  Clyde 
shop  stewards  as  a  revolutionary  idea  for  the 


174         THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

great  industry  itself.  ''The  distinctive  features 
of  Co-operative  Work  .  .  .  are  that  (1)  the  mem- 
bers of  the  co-operative  group  are  associated  by 
their  own  free  choice,  determining  for  themselves 
of  how  many  persons  and  of  what  persons  that 
group  shall  consist,  (2)  the  associated  workmen 
select  from  amongst  themselves  their  own  leader, 
and  (3)  arrange  the  division  of  the  collective 
wages  between  the  members  of  the  group  in  such 
manner  as  may  be  mutually  agreed  upon  between 
these  associates  as  being' equitable. "  ^  Messrs. 
Gallacher  and  Paton  argue  '  that  * '  the  next  step ' ' 
for  a  shop  stewards'  committee,  after  some  ex- 
perience as  the  '  *  sole  medium  of  contact  between 
the  firm  and  the  workers"  should  be  to  ''under- 
take in  one  large  contract,  or  in  two  or  three  con- 
tracts at  most,  the  entire  business  of  production 
throughout  the  establishment.  Granted  an  alli- 
ance with  the  organized  office-workers — a  develop- 
ment which  is  assured  so  soon  as  the  Shop  Com- 
mittees are  worthy  of  confidence  and  influential 
enough  to  give  adequate  protection — these  con- 
tracts might  include  the  work  of  design  and  pur- 
chase of  raw  material,  as  well  as  the  operations 
of  manufacture  and  construction.  But  to  begin 
with,  the  undertaking  will  cover  only  the  manual 
operations.     The  contract  price,  or  wages — for 


'  D.  F.  Schloss,  op.  cit.,  1918  edition,  p.  155. 

*  Towards  Induttrial  Democracy.     See  Note  on  Sources. 


METHODS  OF  PAYMENT  175 

it  is  still  wages — will  be  remitted  by  the  firm  to 
the  Works  Committee  in  a  lump  sum,  and  dis- 
tributed to  the  workers  by  their  own  representa- 
tives, or  their  officials,  and  by  whatever  system  or 
scale  of  remuneration  they  choose  to  adopt.  .  .  . 
A  specially  enlightened  union  of  this  sort  would, 
no  doubt,  elect  to  pool  the  earnings  of  its  members 
and  pay  to  each  a  regular  salary  weekly,  monthly, 
or  quarterly,  exacting,  of  course,  from  the  re- 
cipient a  fixed  minimum  record  of  work  for  the 
period.  .  .  .  The  functions  of  management  will 
have  passed  to  the  Committees,  and  it  will  be  their 
business  to  see  that  contract  prices  amply  cover 
all  the  costs  of  these  functions." 

It  is  obvious,  then,  that  the  various  methods  of 
wage  payment  raise  issues  far  beyond  the  im- 
mediate bargaining  for  wages.  Methods  of  pay- 
ment themselves  depend  largely  on  the  technique 
of  the  industry  concerned,  but  each  system  of 
payment  has  in  turn  its  by-products  in  particular 
forms  of  attempts  at  control,  and  one  of  the  most 
detailed  projects  put  forward  by  the  propagan- 
dists for  workers '  control  is  based  on  a  proposed 
change  in  the  method  of  payment.  But  it  is  high 
time  to  discuss  the  questions  raised  in  the  last 
few  sections,  not  only  with  reference  to  the  re- 
lations of  man  to  man  in  industry,  but  also  more 
specifically  to  the  relations  of  man  to  the  tech- 
nique of  production. 


XIII 

TECHNIQUE:  RESTRICTION  AND 
RESTRICTIONS 

The  people  who  write  about  the  things  the  workers 
do  and  do  not  control,  often  use  the  broad  dis- 
tinction between  conditions  of  employment  on  the 
one  hand  and  methods  of  production  on  the  other. 
Sometimes  they  say  that  the  former  are  rightly 
the  worker's  affair,  the  latter  entirely  the  em- 
ployer's. The  moral  of  it  is  not  this  book's  busi- 
ness, but  the  distinction  is  a  help  in  classifying. 
The  forms  of  control  already  studied  fall  under 
the  first  head;  those  still  to  be  discussed  belong 
to  the  second.  But  the  division  is  by  no  means 
rigid — the  facts  do  not  divide  so  neatly;  no  one 
of  the  earlier  sections  has  failed  to  raise  questions 
of  the  technique  of  production.  Nor  does  it  rep- 
resent a  sharply  logical  demarcation ;  the  process 
at  which  a  man  works  is  perhaps  the  most  im- 
portant condition  of  his  employment.  But  clearly 
in  turning  to  technique,  we  are  coming  to  a  vital 
part  of  our  subject.  We  have  discussed  some  of 
the  personal  relationships  in  industry — the  politics 
of  industry;  but  how  about  the  work  itself  I    What 

17a 


RESTRICTION  AND  RESTRICTIONS     177 

control  have  the  organized  workers  exercised  over 
the  actual  technology  of  mdustryf 

The  newspaper  reader  is  likely  to  think  of 
workers'  control  over  production,  if  at  all,  as 
either  sheer  restriction  of  output,  or  else  as  a 
series  of  restrictions  which  prevent  the  use  and 
(where  the  issue  really  comes  to  a  head)  the  in- 
troduction of  the  best  industrial  technique.  This 
section,  then,  will  deal  with  restriction  and  re- 
strictions. 

Restriction  of  output — apparently  better  known 
as  ''this  damned  restriction  of  output" — is  an 
interesting  subject,  if  only  for  the  passion  it 
arouses.  But  it  is  necessary  to  examine  it  very 
closely  to  see  whether  it  falls  within  the  range 
of  our  inquiry.  To  decide  how  much  is  to  be  pro- 
duced— the  employer 's  decision  whether  it  is  more 
profitable  to  increase  or  restrict  his  output  of  a 
certain  commodity — is  obviously  a  main  element 
in  the  control  of  industry.  But  it  is  not 
claimed  that  the  workers  in  restricting  output 
(except  in  one  or  two  rare  instances  which  will 
be  mentioned  under  ''Trade  Policy")  have  made 
any  conscious  attempt  to  sh^re  in  that  decision. 
The  charge  is  that  the  workers — or  rather  some 
groups  of  workers — have  been  deliberately  setting 
a  limit  to  their  own  output;  deciding  for  them- 
selves "what  amount  of  output  by  each  operative 
should  be  considered  a  fair  day's  work,  not  to  be 


178  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

considerably  exceeded  under  penalty  of  the  serious 
displeasure  of  the  workshop. ' '  There  is  no  doubt 
at  all  that  a  ca'canny  (go  slow)  policy  is  a  serious 
problem  in  many  industries — rand  a  ca'canny  that 
cannot  bo  explained  as  a  mere  natural  difference 
between  the  employer's  and  the  worker's  idea  of 
a  ''fair  day's  work."  Very  likely  the  extent  of 
this  policy  is  exaggerated  in  certain  current  ex- 
hortations to  hard  work,  but  its  existence  is  ad- 
mitted by  too  many  trade  union  leaders  ^  to  be  a 
matter  of  doubt.  Besides  sheer  laziness  two  mo- 
tives are  usually  suggested  for  the  restriction  of 
output.  There  is  first  the  fear  of  the  rate-cutting 
that  has  in  the  past  so  often  followed  increases  in 
output.  ''Slow  down,"  says  Lola  Ridge's  heroine 
in  The  Ghetto,  "You'll  have  him  cutting  us 
again!"  The  second  is  the  notion  that  somehow 
the  less  work  is  done  the  more  there  will  be  to 
go  around.  This  is  the  meaning  of  a  catch 
phrase  from  the  Ragged  Trousered  Philanthro- 
pists:— 

"Just  because  we've  been  working  a  dam  sight  too 
hard,  now  we've  got  no  work  to  do." 

The  use  of  ca'canny  or  the  "stay-in  strike"  as 
a  conscious  form  of  militant  labor  policy — either 
as  a  weapon  in  a  particular  dispute  or  with  the 

'  Some  of  them  even  use  it  as  a  text  for  denouncing  the  pres- 
ent industrial  system. 


RESTRICTION  AND  RESTRICTIONS     179 

fixed  idea  of  making  capitalism  impossible  by  mak- 
ing it  unprofitable — is  another  matter  and  surely 
of  much  rarer  occurrence.  Its  classic  expression 
is  in  The  Mmers'  Next  Step  published  in  1911  by 
a  group  of  Welsh  miners : — 

"Lodges  should,  as  far  as  possible,  discard  the  old 
method  of  coming  out  on  strike  for  any  little  minor 
grievance.  And  adopt  the  more  scientific  weapon  of  the 
irritation  strike  by  simply  remaining  at  work  reducing 
their  output,  and  so  contrive  by  their  general  conduct, 
to  make  the  colliery  unremunerative.  .  .  . 

Use  of  the  irritation  strike 

If  the  men  wish  to  bring  effective  pressure  to  bear, 
they  must  use  methods  which  tend  to  reduce  profits. 
One  way  of  doing  this  is  to  decrease  production,  while 
continuing  at  work.  Quite  a  number  of  instances  where 
this  method  has  been  successfully  adopted  in  South  Wales 
could  be  adduced,"    - 

But  the  very  fact  that  th^  writers  felt  it  neces- 
sary to  explain  at  such  length,  even  for  South 
Wales  readers,  what  an  irritation  strike  was,  is 
sufficient  indication  of  its  rarity.  As  a  means  of 
winning  control,  it  is  advocated  by  only  a  tiny 
minority.  From  the  point  of  view  of  this  inquiry, 
the  subject  may  be  ruled  out  of  the  question. 
Restricting  output  as  a  method  of  piece-work  bar- 
gaining introduces  no  particularly  new  principle 
into  the  wage  bargain.    Shirking  is  not  controlling 


180         THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

industry  thougli,  like  striking,  it  may  be  a  means 
towards  it.  And  the  **  stay-in  strike"  is  no  more, 
and  no  less,  a  means  of  controlling  industry  than 
the  ordinary  strike  and  therefore  needs  no  separate 
treatment  here.  Restriction  of  output  is  more  a 
method  of  warfare  than  a  form  of  control  and, 
since  this  is  neither  a  discussion  of  the  ways  of 
winning  control  nor  of  the  technique  of  industrial 
strife,  it  is  fortunately  unnecessary  to  make  any 
further  guesses  about  the  amount  of  restriction. 

But  if  mere  restriction  of  output — for  all  its 
interest  as  an  industrial  problem  and  an  industrial 
symptom — ^has  no  great  bearing  on  the  subject, 
certain  specific  restrictions  are  very  closely  re- 
lated to  control.  The  Munitions  of  War  Act  of 
1915  provided  (II.4.[3])  that:— 

**Any  rule,  practice,  or  custom  not  having  the  force 
of  law  which  tends  to  restrict  production  or  employment 
shall  be  suspended"  ...  in  the  controlled  establish- 
ments. 

The  Government's  pledge  was  given  to  the  trade 
unions  in  the  famous  Treasury  Agreement  (see 
next  section)  that  these  regulations  would  be  re- 
stored after  the  war;  the  same  pledge  was  a  part 
of  the  Government's  contract  with  the  employers; 
the  employers  were  under  obligation  to  keep  a 
record  of  all  such  changes  in  practice;  and  the 
Restoration  (of  Pre- War  Practices)  Act  has  just 


RESTRICTION  AND  RESTRICTIONS     181 

made  the  pledge  enforceable  at  law.  Evidently, 
then,  there  was  an  extensive  body  of  custom  and 
vested  right  in  regulations  that  could  at  least  be 
held  to  ''restrict  production  or  employment"  and 
which  were  considered  by  the  unions,  and  recog- 
nized by  the  Government,  as  of  first-rate  im- 
portance. 

It  is  then  important  to  try  to  estimate  how  far 
this  mass  of  confusing,  usually  local,  and  often 
unwritten  custom,  involved  a  real — though  nega- 
tive and  restrictive — control  over  the  technique  of 
industry.  Certain  restrictions  that  were  held  to 
fall  within  the  meaning  of  this  clause  may  be  ruled 
out  at  once  from  the  present  subject,  or  have  been 
discussed  in  earlier  sections.  Limitations  on  the 
amount  of  overtime,  for  example,  were  given  up 
for  the  war  emergency;  the  question  is  an  impor- 
tant one  but  surely  not  primarily  one  of  technique, 
and  its  most  direct  bearing  on  control  has  already 
been  discussed  under  ' '  Unemployment. ' '  Regula- 
tions forbidding  piece  work  and  premium  bonus 
systems  were  held  to  come  under  the  Act ;  they  of 
course  affect  industrial  technique  only  indirectly, 
and  were  sufficiently  covered  in  the  last  section. 

A  more  important  set  of  these  restrictions  has 
to  do  with  the  subjects  of  the  ''Right  to  a  Trade" 
— apprenticeship,  demarcation,  and  the  opposition 
to  dilution  and  the  employment  of  women — re- 
ferred to  in  the  fifth  emotion.    These  are  certainly, 


182         THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

when  enforced,  a  /  direct  interference  with  the 
** manipulation  of  the  workman  by  the  employer;" 
they  involve  saying  which  machines  shall  be  run 
by  which  sorts  of  workmen  and  to  that  extent 
imply  a  real  restriction  on  technique.  The  restric- 
tions against  dilution  are  from  the  point  of  view 
of  technique  especially  significant.  Demarcation 
matters  less ;  a  job  will  be  done  very  much  the  same 
way  whether  it  is  done  by  a  skilled  shipwright 
or  by  a  skilled  boilermaker.  But  you  cannot  put  a 
semi-skilled  or  unskilled  man  or  woman  on  the 
work  formerly  done  by  a  skilled  engineer  without 
changing  the  method  of  production.  You  must 
split  up  the  job  into  simpler  processes,  fit  the  ma- 
chine with  jigs  or  other  fool-proof  contrivances, 
and  in  general  standardize  your  work  so  that  it 
can  be  done  on  automatic  machines.  It  is  just  be- 
cause changes  of  this  sort  have  been  made  and 
found  immensely  profitable  that  the  issue  is  so 
significant.  This  was  the  general  tendency  of 
** scientific  management"  even  before  the  war;  the 
war  greatly  emphasized  the  tendency  by  its 
demand  for  standardized  munition  production. 
"Industrial  methods  have  been  changing,"  writes 
Mr.  J.  T.  Murphy  in  The  Workers'  Committee, 
"until  the  all-round  mechanic,  for  example,  is  the 
exception  and  not  the  rule.  Specialization  has 
progressed  by  leaps  and  bounds.  Automatic  ma- 
chine production  has  vastly  increased,    Appren- 


RESTRICTION  AND  RESTRICTIONS     183 

ticeship  in  thousands  of  cases  is  a  farce,  for  even 
the  apprentices  are  kept  on  repetition  work  and 
have  become  a  species  of  cheap  labor.  ...  It  will 
be  thus  clearly  perceived  that  every  simplification 
in  the  methods  of  production,  every  application  of 
machinery  in  place  of  hand  production,  means  that 
the  way  becomes  easier  for  others  to  enter  the 
trade."  This  is  taken  from  an  argument  against 
craft  unionism;  it  should  be  somewhat  discounted 
since  it  is  based  on  engineering,  the  one  industry 
most  affected  by  the  change,  and  since  it  is  based 
on  war-time  experience,  when  the  demand  was 
more  standardized  than  peace-time  demand  is 
likely  to  be.  But  there  is  no  question  whatever 
that  the  general  movement  of  industrial  technique 
is  towards  specialization,  and  that  the  trade  union 
rules  against  dilution  are  a  restriction  on  that 
tendency.  This  control  is  purely  negative,  and 
purely  a  defence  of  old  customary  rights ;  the  rules 
were  never  thought  of  as  implying  a  right  to  say 
what  should  be  done;  but  it  has  been  suggested 
that  even  without  the  war  a  demand  for  positive 
control  would  have  arisen  as  a  quid  pro  quo  for 
the  yielding  of  these  restrictive  regulations.  The 
possibility  of  the  removal  of  all  such  restrictions  on 
technique  is  even  stated  in  a  pamphlet  written  in 
1919  as  sequel  to  the  Miner's  Next  Step — the 
price  for  removal  being  positive  workers'  con- 
trol:— 


184  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

"The  disastrous  grasping  policy  of  the  mine  owner 
has  had  the  result  of  causing  the  workmen  to  erect  a  code 
of  customs  and  rules,  designed  to  protect  their  wages 
and  conditions.  These  act  directly  in  restraint  of  pro- 
duction, as  well  as  of  the  owners'  greed.  Remove  this 
code  by  removing  its  cause,  and  the  management  of  a 
mine  loses  three-fourths  of  its  worries,  while  it  at  least 
doubles  its  efficiency."  {Industrial  Democracy  for 
Miners,  p.  11.) 

I  suppose  few  accounts  of  restrictions  on  tech- 
nique have  been  written  without  an  emphasis  on 
the  objection  to  machinery.  Historically  of  great 
interest,  it  is  a  nearly  dead  issue  now.  In  the 
years  1911,  1912  and  1913,  there  were  two  strikes 
against  the  introduction  of  machinery  (one  of  Glass 
Bottle  Makers,  the  other  of  Dockers)  and  one 
against  the  use  of  a  portable  instead  of  a  sta- 
tionary drill  (Boilermakers).  Less  than  a  thou- 
sand men  were  directly  involved  ia  these  three 
strikes;  as  against  that  6,500  Ironfounders  were 
in  1912  engaged  in  a  dispute  which  was  settled  as 
follows : — 

** Employers'  Assurances  accepted  by  men  as  to  im- 
mediate steps  being  taken  to  improve  output." 

No  doubt  the  restrictions  on  technique  have 
materially  interfered  with  industrial  innovations; 
Mr.  Cole  speaks  of  the  trade  unions  in  the  past  as 
**  extremely  bad  and  partial  judges  of  new  indus- 


RESTRICTION  AND  RESTRICTIONS     185 

trial  processes."  But  it  is  a  mistake  to  think  of 
trade  union  regulation  of  technique  as  a  series  of 
flat  negatives  and  flat  opposition  to  change.  That 
this  is  not  true — that  the  issue  is  more  often  the 
conditions  of  change  and  the  right  to  be  consulted 
and  is  even  sometimes  an  insistence  by  the  union 
on  improved  technique — it  is  the  business  of  the 
next  two  sections  to  show. 


XIV 

TECHNIQUE:  CONSULTATION  OVER 
CHANGES 

A  CHANGE  in  technique  is  a  change  in  the  condi- 
tions of  work.  It  is  therefore  natural  on  the  gen- 
eral principles  of  collective  bargaining  to  expect  to 
find  the  claim  and  practice  of  consultation  over 
changes  in  technique.  Bargaining  over  the  condi- 
tions of  change  is  far  more  important  in  the  pres- 
ent labor  situation  than  a  mere  opposition  to 
change.  The  real  objection  is  to  unregulated 
change.  *  *  The  typical  dispute  is  to-day  a  dispute 
as  to  terms,"  said  the  "Webbs  in  1891;  certainly  it 
is  no  less  true  now.  As  long  ago  as  1864,  the 
Executive  of  the  Ironmoulders  advised  its 
members : — 

"It  may  go  against  the  grain  for  us  to  fraternize 
with  what  we  consider  innovations,  but  depend  upon  it, 
it  wiU  be  our  best  policy  to  lay  hold  of  these  improve- 
ments and  make  them  subservient  to  our  best  interests. ' ' 

Apparently  fraternizing  with  innovations  now 
goes  less  against  the  trade  union  grain;  in  many 
unions  is  it  a  long-established  commonplace;  in 
most  it  is  no  new  thing.    Even  a  conservative  old 

186 


CONSULTATION  OVER  CHANGES       187 

union  like  the  Yorkshire  Glass  Bottle  Makers 
agrees : — 

'  *  That  the  workmen  are  willing  to  adopt  other  methods 
of  working  than  the  Yorkshire  method,  providing  satis- 
factory terms  and  conditions  be  agreed  upon  between 
the  manufacturers  and  the  workmen  through  their  re- 
presentatives," 

Laying  hold  of  these  improvements  and  making 
them  subservient — or  at  least  not  positively  harm- 
ful— to  the  workers'  interests  is  a  cardinal  point 
in.  trade  union  policy. 

The  unions  have  used  various  methods  to  save 
their  members  from  the  immediate  hardships  so 
often  connected  with  changes  in  technique.  The 
simplest  is,  of  course,  merely  to  secure  an  under- 
taking that  wages  will  not  be  lowered,  for 
example : —  < 

*  *  The  owners  shall  be  at  liberty  to  adopt  such  improved 
methods  of  screening  and  cleaning  as  they  may  consider 
necessary,  provided  that  any  methods  so  adopted  shall 
not  in  any  way  prejudicially  effect  the  wages  of  the 
workman." 

This  does  not  meet  the  far  more  serious  changes 
where  the  fear  is  that  members  of  the  trade  will 
be  permanently  displaced.  An  agreement  under 
which  the  Leek  Silk  Weavers  consented  to  the  in- 
troduction of  two-loom  weaving  contained  the 


188  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

''Employers' Undertaking  .  .  .  not  to  discharge 
any  man  in  order  to  initiate  the  two-loom  sys- 
tem." Another  method  is  to  secure  an  arrange- 
ment by  which  the  workers  who  would  otherwise 
have  been  thrown  out  of  work  by  a  new  invention 
or  a  new  process  are  secured  the  first  chance  to 
learn  and  do  the  new  job.  The  best  known  example 
of  this  was  the  printing  trade;  the  linotype  was 
introduced  in  1894  into  the  offices  of  London  news- 
papers under  the  following  agreement : — 

"All  skilled  operators  .  .  .  shall  be  members  of  the 
London  Society  of  Compositors,  preference  being  given 
to  members  of  the  Companionship  into  which  the  ma- 
chines are  introduced.  .  .  . 

"A  Probationary  Period  of  three  months  shall  be 
allowed  the  operator  to  receive  his  average  weekly  earn- 
ings for  the  previous  three  months." 

A  strike  of  Scottish  Bookbinders  in  1912  secured 
the  principles : — 

"Qualified  tradesmen  to  have  first  claim  upon  all  ma- 
chinery introduced  in  future  displacing  qualified  male 
labor  and  to  be  paid  standard  wages." 

Similar,  if  less  formal,  arrangements  have  been 
made  in  other  changing  trades,  as  for  example  in 
pottery  when  ''casting"  began  to  replace  "press- 
ing." 
The  conditions  under  which  the  unions  during 


CONSULTATION  OVER  CHANGES       189 

the  war  accepted  dilution,  and  the  clause 
already  quoted  from  the  Munition  Act  forbidding 
restrictive  regulations,  are  interesting  not  only-  as 
embodying  particular  safeguards,  e.g.  that  the 
"rate  for  the  job"  be  maintained  even  if  less 
skilled  labor  is  put  on  it,^  but  because  the  Act 
laid  down  the  general  principle  of  the  right  to 
consultation  on  changes  in  methods  of  work.  Sec- 
tion 7  of  Schedule  II  reads: — 

"Due  notice  shall  be  given  to  the  workmen  concerned 
wherever  practicable  of  any  changes  of  working  con- 
ditions which  it  is  desired  to  introduce  as  a  result  of 
the  establishment  becoming  a  controlled  establishment, 
and  opportunity  for  local  consultation  with  workmen 
or  their  representatives  shall  be  given  if  desired." 

The  Commissioners  on  Industrial  Unrest  (1917) 
reported  that  the  non-enforcement  of  this  clause 
— or  perhaps  the  free  use  of  the  saving  phrase 
"wherever  practicable" — was  a  cause  of  unrest. 
This  right  to  consultation  was  naturally  one  of 
the  claims  of  the  shop  stewards — a  claim  evidently 
enforced  while  the  shortage  of  labor  gave  them 
their  opportunity.  Their  rules  at  Coventry  read 
as  follows  on  the  point : — 

*  It  is  said  that  this  provision  was  badly  observed,  partly  be- 
cause the  skilled  men  were  not  at  all  anxious  to  keep  up  the 
dilutees'  wages,  even  though  it  was  for  their  own  after-war  in- 
terest. The  attitude  more  often  adopted  by  trade  union  officials, 
however,  was  to  place  on  "  the  rate  for  the  job  "  an  interpreta- 
tion which  made  diluted  labor  expensive,  so  using  the  rate  as  a 
means  of  hampering  dilution. 


190         THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

"That  all  proposed  changes  to  existing  shop  practices 
and  trade  union  conditions  in  the  shop  shall  be  first 
notified  to  the  Shop  Stewards  of  that  department 
through  the  Chief  Convenor  of  Shop  Stewards." 


The  great  but  unrecorded  powers  of  certain  en- 
gineering shop  stewards  during  the  war  in  fact 
represent  the  highest  degree  of  the  practice  of  con- 
sultation. It  is  true  that  this  consisted  largely  in 
fighting  over  wage  questions  (as  in  the  case  of  the 
Manchester  committee  that  is  said  to  have  spent 
27  hours  of  one  week  in  meetings  with  the  man- 
agement), but  it  at  least  involved  in  practice  de- 
tailed discussion  of  technical  problems  and  changes 
and  in  theory  a  recognition  of  a  right  to  consulta- 
tion over  technique.  In  an  extreme  case  on  the 
Clyde,  the  steward  in  each  shop,  in  consultation 
with  the  foreman,  practically  determined  the  dis- 
tribution of  work  within  the  shop,  and  similarly 
the  convenor  of  shop  stewards  discussed  with  the 
works  manager  the  allocation  of  work  between 
departments  and  was  even  shown  the  firm's  books. 
It  even  became  in  this  case  the  custom  for  notices 
posted  by  the  manager  announcing  a  change  in 
working  rules  to  be  countersigned  by  the  men's 
representative ;  when  this  was  not  done,  the  work- 
men said: — **It's  no  signed  by  MacManus,"  and 
disregarded  it. 

It  is  only  here  with  the  recognition  of  a  right 


CONSULTATION  OVER  CHANGES       191 

or  principle  of  consultation  over  changes  in  tech- 
nique that  we  come  really  to  control  in  a  proper 
sense  of  the  word.  The  former  instances  are,  after 
all,  not  much  more  than  special  cases  of  bargain- 
ing; but  an  established  claim  to  be  coi  5ulted  in 
every  technical  change  is  at  least  the  ')asis  for 
considerable  control.  It  is  difficult  to  draw  any 
very  valid  distinction  between  consultation  and 
bargaining ;  yet  consultation  over  changes  in  tech- 
nique very  Often  may  mean  more  than  a  mere 
chance  to  bargain  over  terms  of  a  change  before 
it  happens;  it  often  means  a  real,  though  not 
always  an  important,  give-and-take  of  advice  and 
opinion  on  the  advisability  of  a  change.  An  illus- 
tration of  the  most  rudimentary  form  of  this  might 
be  taken  from  the  experience  of  a  somewhat  pater- 
nalistic forging  firm,  that  had  consulted  its  work- 
men over  some  detail  of  the  time-keeping  arrange- 
ments. The  attitude  of  the  men  is  said  to  have 
been  this: — "The  Directors  couldn't  even  do  a 
little  thing  like  that  without  consulting  us."  A 
foreman  in  one  of  the  National  Factories  attri- 
buted the  success  of  his  factory  and  the  good  feel- 
ing in  it  largely  to  the  practice  of  the  management 
in  discussing  both  with  a  foremen's  and  a  worker's 
committee  the  work  ahead  and  the  means  of  doing 
it.  On  a  much  greater  scale  the  same  claim  was 
put  forward  in  the  House  of  Commons  by  Mr. 
Brace,  one  of  the  Miners'  Members,  in  the  impor- 


192         THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

tant  debate  on  tlie  increase  of  coal  prices  (July 
14,  1919)  :— 

"Why  were  we  not  taken  into  consultation?  .  .  . 
Very  nearly  on  the  last  day  of  the  Coal  Commission  the 
Miners'  Federation  of  G-reat  Britain  representatives 
made  an  earnest  appeal  that  they  should  be  allowed  to 
co-operate  with  the  Government  in  finding  a  way  for 
dealing  with  the  reduction  in  output,  and  the  reply  we 
had,  very  much  later,  was  6/-  a  ton  increase  on  the  price 
of  coal." 

The  same  idea  is  of  course  a  central  one  of  the 
whole  scheme  of  the  Whitley  and  Works  Commit- 
tees reports,  and  has  perhaps  been  sufficiently 
advertised  by  them.  But  the  right  to  take  a  share 
in  the  deciding  on  new  industrial  processes  is  a 
real  part  of  the  forward  program  of  an  important 
fraction  of  the  trade  union  movement. 

In  order  to  make  concrete  the  references  to  the 
actual  and  proposed  recognitions  of  the  '  *  right  to 
consultation,"  I  think  it  is  worth  while  to  quote  in 
full  the  Treasury  Agreement  of  1915 — on  which 
the  Munitions  Act  and  the  official  Government 
policy  on  changes  in  technique  during  the  war 
were  based — and,  for  comparison  with  it,  a  com- 
prehensive scheme  drawn  up  by  a  committee  of 
workers  representing  the  Clyde  engineering  and 
shipbuilding  trades  to  meet  the  same  problem  of 
dilution  and  the  changes  necessary  for  war-time 


CONSULTATION  OVER  CHANGES        193 

production.  The  first  document  was  the  result  of  a 
conference  between  Mr.  Lloyd  George,  then  Chan- 
cellor of  the  Exchequer,  and  representatives  of  the 
chief  munition-making  unions.  It  represented  the 
terms — and  the  degree  of  consultation — under 
which  most  of  the  official  trade  union  leaders  con- 
sented to  give  up  for  the  war  their  restrictions 
against  dilution.  The  second  scheme  was  drawn  up 
by  Mr.  John  Muir  and  other  leaders  of  the  shop 
stewards'  movement  on  the  Clyde.  It  was  rejected 
by  the  Government — Mr.  Lloyd  George  declaring 
that  he  couldn't  ''carry  on  an  industrial  revolu- 
tion in  the  middle  of  a  world  war" — and  several  of 
its  authors  were  shortly  in  prison  as  revolution- 
ists. The  scheme  was  a  war-time  one  and  there- 
fore did  not  have  to  face  the  problem  of  unemploy- 
ment as  the  background  of  trade  union  regula- 
tions. It  is,  however,  of  great  interest  in  tying  to- 
gether the  threads  of  this  and  the  last  section — ^the 
network  of  restrictions  and  the  conditions  of  and 
consultations  over  their  removal — and  in  pointing 
the  way  to  the  next  section — on  trade  union  in- 
sistences on  improvements  in  technique.  It  repre- 
sents a  definite  attempt  on  the  part  of  a  group  of 
workers  to  pass  from  negative  to  positive,  and 
from  obstructive  to  responsible,  control  of  in- 
dustry, ' 


194    THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

THE  TREASURY  AGREEMENT 

"The  Workmen's  Representatives  at  the  Conference 
will  recommend  to  their  members  the  following  proposals 
with  a  view  to  accelerating  the  output  of  munitions  and 
equipments  of  war: — 

(1)  During  the  war  period  there  shall  in  no  case  be 
any  stoppage  of  work  upon  munitions  and  equipments 
of  war  or  other  work  required  for  a  satisfactory  com- 
pletion of  the  war. 

All  differences  on  wages  or  conditions  of  employment 
arising  out  of  the  war  shall  be  dealt  with  without  stop- 
page in  accordance  with  paragraph  (2). 

Questions  not  arising  out  of  the  war  should  not  be 
made  the  cause  of  stoppage  during  the  war  period. 

(2)  Subject  to  any  existing  agreements  or  methods 
now  prevailing  for  the  settlement  of  disputes,  differences 
of  a  purely  individual  or  local  character  shall  unless 
mutually  arranged  be  the  subject  of  a  deputation  to 
the  firm  employing  the  workmen  concerned,  and  dif- 
ferences of  a  general  character  affecting  wages  and  con- 
ditions of  employment  arising  out  of  the  war  shall  be 
the  subject  of  Conferences  between  the  parties. 

In  all  cases  of  failure  to  reach  a  settlement  of  disputes 
by  the  parties  directly  concerned,  or  their  representa- 
tives, or  under  existing  agreements,  the  matter  in  dis- 
pute shall  be  dealt  with  under  any  one  of  the  three 
following  alternatives  as  may  be  mutually  agreed,  or, 
in  default  of  agreement,  settled  by  the  Board  of  Trade. 

(a)  The  Committee  on  Production. 

(b)  A  single  arbitrator  agreed  upon  by  the  parties 

or  appointed  by  the  Board  of  Trade. 

(c)  A  court  of  arbitration  upon  which  Labor  is 

represented  equally  with  the  employers. 


CONSULTATION  OVER  CHANGES       195 

(3)  An  Advisory  Committee  representative  of  the 
organized  workers  engaged  in  production  for  Govern- 
ment requirements  shall  be  appointed  by  the  Government 
for  the  purpose  of  facilitating  the  carrying  out  of  these 
recommendations  and  for  consultation  by  the  Govern- 
ment or  by  the  workmen  concerned. 

(4)  Provided  that  the  conditions  set  out  in  paragraph 
(5)  are  accepted  by  the  Government  as  applicable  to 
all  contracts  for  the  execution  of  war  munitions  and 
equipments,  the  workmen's  representatives  at  the  Con- 
ference are  of  opinion  that  during  the  war  period  the 
relaxation  of  the  present  trade  practices  is  imperative, 
and  that  each  Union  be  recommended  to  take  into  fav- 
orable consideration  such  changes  in  working  conditions 
or  trade  customs  as  may  be  necessary  with  a  view  to 
accelerating  the  output  of  war  munitions  or  equip- 
ments. 

(5)  The  reconmiendations  contained  in  paragraph  (4) 
are  conditional  on  the  Government  requiring  all  con- 
tractors and  sub-contractors  engaged  on  munitions  and 
equipments  of  war  or  other  work  required  for  the  satis- 
factory completion  of  the  war  to  give  an  undertaking 
to  the  following  effect: — 

Any  departure  during  the  war  from  the  practice  rul- 
ing in  our  workshops,  shipyards,  and  other  industries 
prior  to  the  war,  shall  only  be  for  the  period  of  the  war. 

No  change  in  practice  made  during  the  war  shall  be 
allowed  to  prejudice  the  position  of  the  work  people  in 
our  employment  or  of  their  Trade  Unions  in  regard  to 
the  resumption  and  maintenance  after  the  war  of  any 
rules  or  customs  existing  prior  to  the  war. 

In  any  readjustment  of  staff  which  may  have  to  be 
effected  after  the  war,  priority  of  employment  will  be 


196         THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

given  to  workmen  in  our  employment  at  the  beginning 
of  the  war  who  are  serving  with  the  colors  or  who  are 
now  in  our  employment. 

Where  the  custom  of  a  shop  is  changed  during  the 
war  by  the  introduction  of  semi-skilled  men  to  perform 
work  hitherto  performed  by  a  class  of  workmen  of  higher 
skill,  the  rates  paid  shall  be  the  usual  rates  of  the  district 
for  that  class  of  work. 

The  relaxation  of  existing  demarcation  restrictions  or 
admission  of  semi-skilled  or  female  labor  shall  not  affect 
adversely  the  rates  customarily  paid  for  the  job.  In 
cases  where  men  who  ordinarily  do  the  work  are  ad- 
versely affected  thereby,  the  necessary  readjustments 
shall  be  made  so  that  they  can  maintain  tlieir  previous 
earnings. 

A  record  of  the  nature  of  the  departures  from  the 
conditions  prevailing  before  the  date  of  this  undertak- 
ing shall  be  kept  and  shall  be  open  for  inspection  by  the 
authorized  representative  of  the  Government. 

Due  notice  shall  be  given  to  the  workmen  concerned, 
wherever  practicable,  of  any  changes  of  working  con- 
ditions which  it  is  desired  to  introduce  as  the  result  of 
this  arrangement,  and  opportunity  of  local  consultation 
with  the  men  or  their  representatives  shall  be  given  if 
desired. 

All  differences  with  our  workmen  engaged  on  Govern- 
ment work  arising  out  of  changes  so  introduced,  or  with 
regard  to  wages  or  conditions  of  employment  arising 
out  of  the  war,  shall  be  settled  without  stoppage  of 
work  in  accordance  with  the  procedure  laid  down  in 
paragraph  (2). 

It  is  clearly  understood  that,  except  as  expressly  pro- 
vided in  the  fourth  paragraph  of  clause  5,  nothing  in 


CONSULTATION  OVER  CHANGES        197 

this  undertaking  is  to  prejudice  the  position  of  employ- 
ers or  employees  after  the  war. 

D.  Lloyd  George. 
Walter  Runeiman. 
Arthur  Henderson 
(Chairman  of  Workmen's  Representatives). 

Wm.  Mosses 
(Secretary  of  Workmen's  Representatives). 
March  19,  1915. 

THE  CLYDE  DILUTION  SCHEME 

"The  Clyde  District  Committee  of  the  Federation  of 
Engineering  and  Shipbuilding  Trades,  which  repre- 
sents all  the  workers  in  the  industries  mentioned,  are 
ready  to  co-operate  with  the  Admiralty  Shipyard  Labor 
Committee  for  the  Clyde  in  accelerating  all  work 
required  by  that  Department,  wherever  possible,  in  the 
national  emergency. 

We  believe  that  with  greater  co-ordination  and  better 
distribution  of  labor,  the  present  admittedly  high  stand- 
ard of  output  can  be  further  improved  upon. 

Therefore  it  is  agreed  that: — • 

(1)  The  existing  members  of  the  Unions  affiliated  to 
the  Federation  will  be  used  to  the  best  advantage. 

(2)  If  at  any  time  the  Central  Board  hereinafter  men- 
tioned are  satisfied  that  any  rule  or  custom  tends  to  re- 
strict output,  it  shall  be  suspended  for  the  duration  of 
the  war. 

(3)  Pneumatic,  hydraulic,  electric,  oxy-acetylene  and 
all  other  time  and  labor-saving  devices  will  be  adopted 
and  used  to  the  fullest  practicable  extent. 

(4)  There  shall  be  interchangeability  of  work  between 
the  members  of  any  particular  Union  affiliated  to  the 


198         THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

Federation  and  to  effect  that  purpose  all  lines  of  de- 
marcation between  members  of  that  Union  shall  be 
suspended  for  the  period  of  the  War. 

(5)  For  the  period  of  the  War  all  allocation  of  work 
between  the  different  Shipyard  Unions  will  be  sus- 
pended, and  the  work  performed  by  the  members  of 
the  Shipyard  Unions  will  be  interchangeable,  it  being 
agreed  that  any  work  of  one  Shipyard  Union  performed 
by  the  members  of  another  Shipyard  Union  shall  not 
form  any  precedent  after  the  War. 

(6)  When  in  any  particular  trade  men  are  unobtain- 
able, and  the  work  is  of  such  a  character,  or  the  con- 
ditions such  as  to  enable  the  labor  introduced  to  per- 
form the  work  with  reasonable  efficiency,  skilled  men 
from  allied  trades  and  semi-skilled  and  unskilled  men 
and  (where  the  work  is  appropriate  and  the  conditions 
and  surroundings  are  suitable  to  their  sex)  women  may 
be  introduced  into  the  trade  of  the  Unions  affiliated  to 
the  Federation. 

(7)  The  relaxation  of  existing  demarcation  restric- 
tions or  admission  of  semi-skilled  or  female  labor  shall 
not  affect  adversely  the  rates  customarily  paid  for  job. 
In  cases  where  men  who  ordinarily  do  the  work  are 
adversely  affected  thereby,  the  necessary  readjustment 
shall  be  made  so  that  they  can  maintain  their  previous 
earnings. 

(8)  Labor  introduced  under  Clause  6  to  do  any  work 
of  the  Unions  affiliated  to  the  Federation  shall  be  under 
the  supervision  of  the  foreman  of  the  work. 

(9)  Where  overtime  is  required  on  any  job  of  the 
members  of  the  Unions  affiliated  to  the  Federation,  to 
which  labor  has  been  introduced  under  Clause  6,  any 
members  of  the  Unions  affiliated  to  the  Federation  em- 
ployed thereon  shall  have  equality  of  treatment. 


CONSULTATION  OVER  CHANGES       199 

(10)  In  the  event  of  any  member  of  any  particular 
Union  affiliated  to  the  Federation  being  available  for 
emplojnnent  at  his  own  occupation  he  shall  have  the 
preference. 

(11)  A  record  of  the  nature  of  any  departure  in  any 
shipbuilding,  or  ship-repairing  establishment  from  the 
conditions  prevailing  when  the  establishment  became  a 
controlled  establishment  shall  be  kept,  and,  so  far  as  the 
departure  affects  any  Unions  affiliated  to  the  Federation, 
copies  shall  be  handed  to  the  Society  concerned  and  the 
Central  Board  hereinafter  mentioned. 

(12)  Due  notice  of  any  intended  change  of  practice 
in  any  shipbuilding  or  ship-repairing  establishment 
shall  be  given  to  the  Shop  Stewards  of  the  Union  con- 
cerned with  their  Union  representatives. 

(13)  Facilities  shall  be  given  by  the  employers  to 
the  shop  committees  to  meet  when  necessary  for  the  pur- 
poses of  this  scheme. 

(14)  All  differences  arising  out  of,  or  in  connection 
with  this  agreement  shall,  without  stoppage  of  work, 
be  promptly  referred  to  and  settled  between  the  Cen- 
tral Board  and  the  Shipyard  Labor  Committee  of  the 
Admiralty. 

(15)  Under  the  scheme  of  transfer  no  workman  or 
workwoman  shall  suffer  any  pecuniary  loss  when  trans- 
ferred from  one  Admiralty  firm  to  another;  they  shall 
receive  the  standard  Trade  Union  district  rate  of 
wages,  if  on  time  or  piece,  plus  travelling  allowances 
according  to  the  War  Munitions  Volunteer  scheme;  in 
the  event  of  being  transferred  to  work  paid  at  a  lower 
rate  than  his  or  her  own  rate,  the  original  rate  shall  be 
paid;  this  practice  shall  also  be  carried  out  in  cases  of 
transfer  from  one  department  to  another  in  an  Ad- 
miralty firm,  or  from  one  district  to  another. 


200         THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

For  the  purposes  of  this  scheme  the  Federation  will 
establish  Shop  Committees  in  the  various  yards  and 
engine  shops  in  the  Clyde  area,  under  the  direction  and 
control  of  a  Central  Board,  which  will  co-operate  with 
the  Shipyard  Labor  Committee  of  the  Admiralty,  to 
co-ordinate  all  efforts  for  the  acceleration  of  output. 

Shop  Committees  to  consist  of  Shop  Stewards  now 
representing  the  various  Unions  in  the  shops  and  yards 
affiliated  to  the  Federation.  Where  the  present  number 
of  Shop  Stewards  in  any  one  yard  is  inadequate,  the 
Societies  concerned  will  immediately  instruct  their  mem- 
bers to  appoint  a  representative  by  election  in  the  shop 
or  yard  where  there  is  a  deficiency,  for  the  purposes 
of  this  scheme. 

The  duties  of  Shop  Committees  shall  be  to  report 
where : — 

(1)  An  unnecessary  supply  of  labor  prevails; 

(2)  In  the  department  labor  can  be  more  effectively 

employed  by  distribution,  transfer,  or  other- 
wise; 

(3)  Machinery  can  be  more  usefully  employed; 

(4)  Machinery  can  be  usefully  introduced; 

(5)  Any  other  proposals  regarded  as  being  condu- 

cive to  the  acceleration  of  output; 

(6)  The  Committees  will  each  appoint  a  represen- 

tative steward,  who  will  notify  the  Secretary 
of  the  Central  Board  immediately  it  is 
thought  that  increased  output  can  be  secured 
in  any  direction. 

The  duties  of  the  Central  Board,  which 
will  be  appointed  by  and  be  responsible  to 
the  Federation,  shall  be  to  investigate  all 
cases  and  suggestions  submitted  to  them  by 
the  authorized  Shop  Committee,  and  to  co- 


CONSULTATION  OVER  CHANGES       201 

operate  with  the  Admiralty  Board,  with  a 
view  to  the  more  effective  employment  of 
labor  and  machinery  in  any  manner  deemed 
necessary. 

The  Central  Board  shall  also  be  the  Board 
to  whom  complaint  shall  be  made  with  re- 
gard to  grievances  arising  out  of  the  appli- 
cation of  the  foregoing  scheme." 


XV 

TECHNIQUE:  INSISTENCE  ON 
IMPROVEMENTS 

The  unions  have  blocked  certain  changes  in 
technique  which  they  thought  would  injure  their 
interests.  The  unions  have  laid  down  conditions 
under  which  changes  in  technique  might  be  made 
without  injuring  their  interests.  These  are  real 
forms  of  control  over  technique  but  of  negative 
control.  At  the  end  of  the  last  section  there  was 
a  suggestion — in  the  demands  for  consultation  for 
its  own  sake  and  in  the  proposals  of  the  Clyde 
Committee — of  a  positive  interest  in  planning  the 
technique  of  industry.  We  have  discussed  the 
workers'  negative  interference  in  technique  and 
their  claim  to  consultation  over  technique ;  it  is  the 
business  of  this  section  to  study  the  cases  of  work- 
ers' insistence  on  improvements  in  technique. 

Some  interest  in  good  technique  is  a  natural 
outcome  of  a  highly-developed  system  of  piece 
rates  in  which  rate-cutting  is  prevented.  If  the 
piece  workers'  earnings  depend  on  the  efficiency 
of  the  machines  or  the  quality  of  the  material  sup- 
plied or  the  arrangement  of  the  factory,  the  work- 
er's '*  facilities "  may  naturally  become  a  part  of 

202 


INSISTENCE  ON  IMPROVEMENTS       203 

the  bargain  and  the  union  secretary  may  even  find 
himself  acting  as  a  semi-ofiicial  efficiency  inspector. 
This  was  the  origin  of  the  long-standing  ''bene- 
volence ' '  of  the  cotton  unions  toward  new  machin- 
ery of  which  the  Webbs  wrote  as  follows : — 

"In  Lancashire  it  quickly  becomes  a  grievance  in  the 
Cotton  Trade  Unions,  if  any  one  employer,  or  any  one 

district,  falls  behind  the  rest No  employer  takes 

the  trouble  to  induce  the  laggards  in  his  own  industry 
to  keep  up  with  the  march  of  invention.  Their  falling 
behind  is  indeed  an  immediate  advantage  to  himself. 
But  to  the  Trade  Unions,  representing  all  the  operatives, 
the  sluggishness  of  the  poor  or  stupid  employers  is  a 
serious  danger.  The  old-fashioned  master  spinners,  with 
slow-going  family  concerns,  complain  bitterly  of  the 
harshness  with  which  the  Trade  Union  officials  refuse 
to  make  any  allowance  for  their  relatively  imperfect 
machinery,  and  even  insist,  as  we  have  seen,  on  their 
paying  positively  a  higher  piece-work  rate  if  they  do  not 
work  their  mills  as  efficiently  as  their  best-equipped 
competitors.  Thus,  the  Amalgamated  Association  of 
Operative  Cotton-spinners,  instead  of  obstructing  new 
machinery,  actually  penalizes  the  employer  who  fails 
to  introduce  it. ' ' 

"Penalizes"  is  a  word  that  may  suggest  too 
much;  the  situation  is  that  the  unions  allow  a  re- 
duction in  piece-work  price  for  the  introduction  of 
more  efficient  machinery,  the  effect  is  to  encourage 
improvements.  It  thus  becomes  the  business  of  the 
union  secretary  to  investigate  claims  of  bad  ma- 


204  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

chinery  or  bad  material  (the  ''bad  spinning"  dis- 
putes) or,  in  fact,  any  inefficiencies  in  management 
that  affect  the  worker's  output,  and  to  get  them  set 
right  or  paid  for.  Somewhat  similar  principles 
govern  the  piece-work  arrangements  of  the  Boiler- 
makers. Their  first  national  agreement  admitted 
that  the  employer  was  ''entitled  to  a  revision  of 
rates  on  account  of  labor-saving  devices ' '  and  for 
' '  improved  arrangements  in  yards. ' '  On  the  other 
hand,  the  present  arrangements  provide  for  the 
settlement  of  complaints  from  the  side  of  the  men 
"with  respect  to  insufficiency  of  pressure,  char- 
acter of  tools,  inefficiency  of  plant,  or  obstructed 
or  odd  jobs." 

A  number  of  strikes  have  turned  on  this  relation 
of  industrial  technique  to  piece-rate  earnings.  One 
of  the  terms  of  a  settlement  in  a  strike  of  nearly 
10,000  workers  in  the  Paisley  thread  mills,  in  1907, 
was  as  follows : — 

"Improvements  made  in  arrangements  of  machinery 
enabling  higher  wages  to  be  earned." 

The  similar  effect  of  an  Ironf ounders '  strike — 
in  enforcing  better  technique — has  already  been 
mentioned. 

The  Miners  illustrate  several  of  the  steps  be- 
tween complaints  over  facilities  and  actual  respon- 
sibility for  the  organization  of  industry.    The  is- 


INSISTENCE  ON  IMPROVEMENTS       205 

sue  again  starts  with  piece  work.  The  hewer  is 
paid  for  the  amount  of  coal  that  gets  to  the  sur- 
face; that  depends  in  large  part  on  the  supply  of 
tubs  and  the  arrangements  for  haulage.  Time 
spent  underground  waiting  for  tubs  and  the  num- 
ber of  days  the  pit  is  closed  for  lack  of  the  nec- 
essary facilities,^  are  of  direct  bearing  on  the 
miners'  wage.  These  are  by  no  means  new  com- 
plaints— a  fact  worth  remembering  now  that  the 
output  of  coal  is  a  subject  of  public  passion  and 
Parliament  is  debating  pit-props.  Sir  Eichard 
Redmayne,  His  Majesty's  Chief  Inspector  of 
Mines,  reminded  the  Coal  Commission  that  com- 
plaints by  the  workers  of  lack  of  tubs,  trams,  etc. 
had  been  coming  in  to  his  department  for  years. 
These  complaints  were  by  no  means  ended 
by  the  passing  of  the  Minimum  Wage  Act  of  1912. 
The  management  can  still  turn  the  workers  back 
at  the  pithead  when  there  is  no  work,  and  the 
minimum  rates  are  set  below  what  a  man  would 
naturally  earn  with  good  facilities,  although  one 
Miners'  agent  quotes  an  official's  remark — ''What 
do  you  care?  You're  on  the  'min'l" — to  a  work- 
man complaining  of  some  defect  in  management. 
For  the  sake  of  concreteness,  it  is  worth  while 
to  list  some  of  the  specific  complaints  made  by  the 
Miners'  leaders,   national  and  local:— too   little 

*C/.  the  claims  of  the  United  Mine  Workers  of  America  in 
their  recent  strike. 


206         THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

coal-cutting  machinery ;  too  little  mechanical  haul- 
age ;  shortage  of  trains,  tubs,  rails,  horses,  and  of 
timber  for  pit-props;  bad  condition  of  roads; 
wagons  too  big  to  go  through  the  passageways; 
bad  distribution  of  tubs  and  wagons ;  bad  distribu- 
tion of  rolling  stock. 

Charges  of  this  sort  were  frequently  referred  to 
in  the  course  of  the  hearings  before  the  Coal  Com- 
mission.^ Mr.  Herbert  Smith  gave  figures  of  the 
results  of  an  inquiry  into  shortage  of  tubs,  etc.  in 
300  Yorkshire  pits  (Q.27759),  and  Mr.  Hodges 
spoke  of  the  ''thousands  of  instances"  of  faulty 
transport  facilities  "  that  were  submitted  to  the 
Executive  Committee  of  the  South  Wales  Miners ' 
Federation  when  they  were  putting  up  their 
scheme  for  increased  output"  (Q.  7178).  Three 
references  are  well  worth  quoting: — 

"Mr.  SmUlie.  Hardly  a  day  passes  but  what  we  get 
letters  signed  from  one  or  other  colliery  complaining 
that  the  men  have  been  sent  home  day  after  day  or  are  in 
the  pit  and  are  only  doing  half  work,  and  in  some  col- 
lieries there  would  be  400  or  500  tons  more  a  day  if 
there  could  be  a  clearance.   .    .    . 

Sir  Richard  Redmayne.  I  have  not  the  least  doubt 
in  the  world  you  are  getting  such  letters;  I  get  such 
letters.  ...  I  have  here  case  after  case  of  detailed 
enquiry  into  such  eases.  Sometimes  I  found  there  was 
no  shadow  of  truth  in  them,  sometimes  I  found  there 

•EspedaUy  Questions  7168,  7178,  7183,  26994,  26995,  27469, 
27472,  27759-27790. 


INSISTENCE  ON  IMPROVEMENTS      207 

was.  ...  I  cannot  think  that  is  the  whole  truth, 
namely,  that  the  cause  of  the  decline  in  output  is 
attributable  to  want  of  clearance — partially,  yes." 
(Q.  27007.) 

*'Mr.  Hodges.  This  is  the  report  of  the  check  weigher 
to  his  Committee  [at  a  Lancashire  colliery] : — 

'For  the  last  three  months  I  have  been  continually 
bombarding  the  management  for  reasons  as  to  the 
shortage  of  tubs,  etc.,  which  the  men  are  constantly 
complaining  about.  During  my  investigation  I  found 
there  have  been  stoppages  of  the  main  haulage  roads 
through  having  day-work  men  working  on  the  haulage 
getting  the  roof  down  and  stopping  gangs  whilst  the 
tubs  were  filled  with  dirt.  On  May  15th  [1919]  four 
men  came  out  of  the  Trencherbone  Mine  as  a  protest  far 
the  manner  in  which  they  were  being  treated  in  regard 
to  empty  tubs.  It  was  12  o'clock  noon  when  they  got 
to  the  surface,  and  they  had  not  had  any  empty  tub 
from  11  o'clock  of  the  previous  day.  Their  tally  num- 
ber is  63.  For  the  last  few  weeks  the  men  in  the  Cran- 
berry Mine  have  been  having  a  bad  time  of  it  owing  to 
the  shortage  of  tubs.  ...  I  have  spoken  to  the  fire- 
men. They  say  they  are  ashamed  to  go  among  the  men 
who  have  to  get  their  time  over  the  best  way  possible.' !  " 
(Q.  27472.) 

"Mr  Hodges.  Do  you  know  the  Nine  Mile  Point  Col- 
liery? 

Mr.  Winstone  [President  South  Wales  Miners'  Fed- 
eration].   Very  well. 

Mr.  Hodges.  Do  you  remember  the  workmen  at  that 
colliery  had  to  embark  on  a  strike  at  one  time  because 


208  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

the  management  were  developing  the  worst  seams  in  the 
colliery  and  leaving  the  best  seams  until  the  market  con- 
ditions were  better  and  the  control  lifted? 

Mr.  Winstone.  Yes,  they  urged  the  colliery  company 
to  develop  a  piece  of  coal  which  was  nearer  to  the  col- 
liery, and  admitted  to  be  better  coal,  and  which  could 
not  be  developed  on  account  of  the  opposition  of  the 
royalty  owner."     (Q.  23677-23678.) 

The  present  point  is  not  how  far  these  charges 
are  justified  or  how  far  they  explain  reduced  out- 
put. Their  real  significance  for  this  inquiry  is  in 
showing  to  what  extent  the  actual  problems  of  man- 
agement and  business  discretion  have  been  made 
subjects  of  trade  union  demands. 

The  Miners,  then,  have  a  long  record  of  insis- 
tences on  detailed  improvements  in  the  method  of 
working.  One  by-product  of  the  war  was  to  give 
these  complaints  something  of  a  responsible  status. 
The  Miners '  Federation  was  asked  by  the  Grovern- 
ment  to  set  up  Absentee  Committees,  such  as  those 
already  mentioned,  to  punish  the  men  who  stayed 
away  from  work.  In  most  districts  the  Miners 
refused  to  do  so  except  on  condition  that  these  com- 
mittees should  also  have  power  to  criticize  the  man- 
agement when  it  was  at  fault  in  not  providing  fac- 
ilities :  if  the  worker  is  to  be  punished  for  staying 
away  from  work,  their  argument  ran,  why  not  the 
officials  for  keeping  the  men  idle  by  mismanage- 
ment?   The  agreement  of  May  16,  1916,  between 


INSISTENCE  ON  IMPROVEMENTS      209 

the  Executive  Committee  of  the  Miners'  Federa- 
tion and  the  Parliamentary  Committee  of  the  Min- 
ing Association,  under  which  the  committees  were 
set  up,  recognized  this  dual  function: — 

* '  That  in  regard  to  absenteeism  this  meeting  agrees  to 
the  matter  being  referred  to  the  districts,  on  the  distinct 
understanding  that  Committees  will  at  once  be  set  up  in 
each  district  to  devise  and  put  into  operation  effective 
machinery  to  secure  the  attendance  of  all  the  workmen 
employed  to  the  fullest  extent,  and  to  inquire  into  the 
circumstances  of  workmen  employed  at  the  mine  not 
being  provided  with  work  when  they  have  presented 
themselves  at  the  mine,  the  intention  being  to  secure,  as 
far  as  possible,  the  output  of  coal  necessary  for  the 
country's  needs." 

The  local  application  of  this  principle  is  well  illus- 
trated by  a  miner's  account  of  a  large  meeting  of 
coal-owners  and  Miners'  delegates  at  Stoke-on- 
Trent:— 

"The  meeting  of  representatives  of  employers  and 
employed  soon  became  lively  and  it  showed  the  intense 
interest  that  was  taken  in  the  Government  suggestions, 
and  the  men  pointed  out  to  the  Coal  Owners  that  there 
were  other  causes  which  caused  a  reduced  output  of  coal 
besides  absenteeism: — the  faults  of  the  management  in 
allowing  the  miners  to  wait  for  timber,  no  facilities  in 
taking  men  to  their  work  and  bringing  them  back,  the 
waiting  for  tubs  through  scarcity  and  uneven  distribu- 
tion of  the  same.     If  they  were  going  to  work  this 


210  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

scheme  and  draw  up  rules,  they  must  bring  the  man- 
agement in  as  well  as  the  men." 

A  specimen  of  the  provisions  for  enforcing  this 
side  of  the  agreement  may  be  taken  from  the  rules 
of  the  North  Staffordshire  Output  Committees : — 

"It  shall  be  open  to  the  Pit  Committee  to  consider 
the  facilities  for  output,  and  for  the  provision  of  mate- 
rial necessary  for  the  proper  performance  of  their  work 
by  the  workmen,  and  to  report  thereon.  If  the  report 
of  the  Committee  imputes  negligence  on  the  part  of  any 
official  of  the  mine,  a  written  copy  shall  be  forwarded 
to  the  manager,  who  shall  take  such  steps  as  he  shall 
deem  necessarj',  in  the  circumstances,  and  shall  inform 
the  Committee  in  writing  of  the  action  he  has  taken,  it 
being  understood  that  it  is  the  intention  for  the  manager 
and  his  officials  to  afford  all  possible  reasonable  facilities 
for  output.  If  the  Committee  shall  not  be  in  agreement 
that  the  steps  taken  by  the  manager  are  satisfactory,  it 
shall  then  deal  with  the  case  as  if  the  alleged  negligence 
were  a  breach  of  the  Rules,  and  failing  agreement  the 
matter  should  be  reported  to  the  Central  Committee  for 
decision.  .    .    . 

The  Central  Committee  shall  consider  and  advise  upon 
steps  to  be  taken  to  the  further  improvement  of  output 
and  of  maintaining  an  increased  attendance." 

The  provisions  for  imposing  fines  for  bad  atten- 
dance and  for  working  out  fines  by  subsequent 
good  attendance  were  similar  to  those  quoted  from 
the  Cleveland  ironworks. 

So  much  for  the  scheme  on  paper;  it  repre- 


INSISTENCE  ON  IMPROVEMENTS      211 

sents  at  least  a  definite  and  admitted  claim  (if  only 
for  the  period  of  the  war)  on  the  part  of  the 
Miners  to  the  right  to  insist  on  technical  efficiency. 
It  is  harder  to  say  how  much  it  meant  in  practice. 
The  attempt  to  set  up  the  committees  was  general 
on  the  part  of  the  Miners'  leaders ;  at  a  number  of 
pits  they  were  unsuccessful.  Moreover,  the  ef- 
fectiveness of  the  committees '  work  varied  greatly, 
though  there  is  no  doubt  that  on  the  whole  atten- 
dance was  considerably  increased.  Nor  did  the 
committees  in  all  cases  undertake  all  the  functions 
suggested  above;  Lancashire,  for  example,  would 
not  take  the  responsibility  of  finding.  Of  more 
importance  for  the  present  point  is  the  fact  that 
many  of  the  committees  failed  to  carry  into  force 
the  insistence  on  improved  facilities.  It  is  true 
that  Yorkshire  reached  the  point  of  fining  negligent 
officials  and  that  many  committees  reported  im- 
provements ''which  affected  the  output  of  coal 
and  increased  the  wages  of  the  men"  or  a  greater 
keenness  on  the  part  of  the  mines  officials  to  make 
sure  that  no  time  was  lost.  Perhaps  the  most  strik- 
ing case  in  which  positive  responsibility  for  tech- 
nique was  assumed  by  the  Miners  was  at  a  York- 
shire pit,  in  which  the  men  appointed  a  controller 
to  supervise  the  distribution  of  tubs  underground 
and  paid  half  his  wages.  Mr.  Herbert  Smith,  the 
Vice-President  of  the  Miners '  Federation,  put  the 
case  before  the  Coal  Commission : — 


212  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

"The  Mitchel  Main  employs  1,750  men.  I  have  a  let- 
ter from  a  man  who  was  appointed  coal  controller,  down 
the  pit.  I  will  read  you  this  letter  .  .  .  'Our  mem- 
bers have  been  below  the  district's  day's  work  and  some 
below  the  minimum  on  account  of  the  shortage  of  tubs. 
We  can  prove  this  statement  and  our  management  can- 
not deny  it.  .  .  .  We  have  gone  to  the  lengths  of  ap- 
pointing a  controller  and  paid  half  his  wages  from  our 
check,  and  Mr.  Edward  J.  Peace  was  appointed  to  that 
position  and  during  the  time  he  was  down  the  mine  or- 
ganizing the  distribution  of  coal  and  everything,  the 
output  was  a  good  deal  better.'  ,  .  .  Men  were  rather 
anxious  when  they  paid  a  man  out  of  their  own  pockets 
to  organize?"     (Q.  27788.) 

But  on  the  other  hand  many  committees  were 
met  with  solid  opposition  in  their  attempts  to  con- 
sider problems  of  management.  In  South  Wales 
the  scheme  fell  through  entirely  because  of  dis- 
agreement over  the  scope  of  the  inquiry.  The  story 
and  the  disputed  clause  in  the  men's  scheme  came 
out  before  the  Coal  Commission  in  the  discussion 
between  Mr.  Hodges  of  the  South  Wales  Miners' 
Federation  and  Mr.  Hugh  Bramwell  representing 
the  South  Wales  coal-owners  :— 

*'Mr.  Hodges.  I  also  had  the  privilege  of  drafting  a 
scheme  for  the  establishment  of  Joint  Committees  in 
South  Wales,  to  which  I  referred  when  you  were  in  the 
box  last,  and  I  remember  very  distinctly  the  scheme 
coming  before  you,  and  you  rejected  it.  You  agreed  to 
several  clauses.  When  it  came  to  this  clause  you  re- 
jected it? 


INSISTENCE  ON  IMPROVEMENTS      213 

Mr.  Bramwell.  Yes;  we  went  to  the  Coal  Controller 
about  that. 

Mr.  Hodges.  Here  the  workmen  made  certain  propo- 
sitions to  you  which  they  thought  would  be  really 
helpful? 

Mr.  BramweU.  Yes;  they  interfered  with  the  man- 
agement. 

Mr.  Hodges.  I  will  read  them.  '  The  Committee  shall 
receive  reports  from  the  Management  and  Workmen  on 
matters  affecting  output,  such  as: 

(a)  Shortage  of  trams  and  road  materials. 

(b)  Shortage  of,  or  unsuitable,  timber. 

(c)  Bad  haulage  roads  and  inadequate  haulage. 

(d)  And  any  other  cause  which  in  their  opinion  is 

likely  to  interfere  with  the  smooth  working 
of  the  mine  or  interfere  with  the  production 
of  the  largest  output.' 

You  rejected  the  scheme  because  it  contained  that 
clause  ? 

Mr.  Bramwell.  That  was,  I  think,  one  clause  we  ob- 
jected to.  We  went  to  the  Coal  Controller  with  you 
about  it.  The  Coal  Controller  offered  us  the  scheme 
which  was  accepted  by  the  bulk  of  the  other  coalfields. 
It  was  you  who  rejected  that. 

Mr.  Hodges.  Certainly.  I  remember  it  and  I  con- 
fess it  because  the  Coal  Controller's  scheme  was 
felt  by  the  South  Wales  Miners  that  it  did  not  give 
them ? 

Mr.  Bramwell.  Because  it  did  not  give  them  power 
to  interfere  with  the  management. 

Mr.  Hodges.  That  is  so.  Not  to  interfere  with  the 
manager  in  his  work,  but  it  did  not  give  them  power  to 
make  suggestions  as  to  how  the  work  should  be  carried 
on  successfully? 


214  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

Mr.  Bramwell.    It  was  not  a  question  of  suggestions. ' ' 
(Q.  21186-21190.) 


Moreover  the  principle  of  the  right  to  make  tech- 
nical criticisms  was  not  always  enforced  even 
where  formally  conceded.  In  some  cases  the  work- 
ers* side  did  not  dare  bring  up  the  question  or  else 
simply  let  their  opportunities  pass.  And  a  large 
number  of  committees  definitely  broke  down  in 
disputes  over  this  issue. 

This  experience  is  worth  setting  out  in  such  de- 
tail, because  it  brings  us  again  to  a  consciously  felt 
"frontier  of  control."  The  quality  of  the  innova- 
tion that  this  trade  union  insistence  on  technique 
implied  may  be  indicated  by  the  grounds  on  which 
it  was  opposed  by  a  minority  of  miners  and  a  num- 
ber of  managers.  Some  of  the  former  called  it 
doing  the  employer's  work.  "When  the  miners' 
leaders  began  to  draw  the  miners '  attention  to  the 
loss  of  turns  and  pointed  out  to  them  that,  if  they 
only  increased  their  attendance  a  little,  it  would 
increase  the  output  by  13  million  tons  of  coal,  they 
soon  told  their  leaders  that  it  was  the  business  of 
the  employer  to  talk  like  that."  Trade  union  offi- 
cials were  not  paid  for  ' '  advocating  increased  out- 
put which  would  only  affect  the  coal-owner."  On 
the  other  hand,  as  shown  in  Mr.  Bramwell 's  testi- 
mony; managers  felt  that  it  was  interfering  with 
management  and  taking  the  management  out  of 


INSISTENCE  ON  IMPROVEMENTS      215 

their  hands.  When  a  trade  union  is  found  vigor- 
ously doing  the  employer's  work  and  taking  it  out 
of  the  management's  hands,  the  case  comes  very 
near  the  center  of  the  problem  of  control. 

It  is  this  background  of  quarrels  and  responsi- 
bilities regarding  problems  of  actual  production 
that  makes  somewhat  less  astonishing  the  part 
played  by  the  Miners'  Federation  in  the  Coal  Com- 
mission's inquiry.  Their  claim  was  not  merely 
that  the  mine-workers  should  have  higher  wages 
and  shorter  hours ;  but  that  these  demands  could 
be  met  by  improving  the  organization  of  the  in- 
dustry; and  that  the  Miners  were  prepared  both 
to  suggest  and  to  help  carry  out  the  necessary  im- 
provements. Detailed  evidence  of  the  technical 
defects  of  the  industry  was  a  more  important  part 
of  the  Miners'  case  than  even  the  reports  of  the 
conditions  of  their  housing.^  *'I  want  the  mines 
nationalized,"  said  Mr.  Smillie  on  the  occasion 
of  a  recent  deputation  to  the  Prime  Minister,  '*in 
order  that,  by  the  fullest  possible  development 
on  intelligent  lines,  with  the  assistance  of  the  en- 
gineering power  which  we  know  we  possess 
and  the  inventions  which  we  know  we  pos- 
sess, we  might  largely  develop  the  mines  and 
increase  the  output.  That  is  one  of  our  first 
claims." 

•  E.g.,  Coal  Commission  Evidence,  vol.  I,  pp.  321-322. 


216  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

These  cases  in  which  the  organized  pressure  of 
the  trade  unions  is  on  the  side  of  improvements  in 
technique  are  emphasized,  not  as  of  frequent  oc- 
currence outside  the  industries  named,  but  as  the 
furthest  extensions  of  constructive  control.  There 
are  other  instances  of  suggestions  for  improve- 
ment made  by  groups  of  workers  still  to  be  con- 
sidered; the  present  section  deals  only  with  those 
in  which  improved  technique  has  been  definitely 
something  for  the  trade  union  to  fight  for. 


XVI 

TECHNIQUE:  SUGGESTIONS  AND 
INVENTIONS 

The  positive  interferences  in  technique  already 
mentioned  had  their  beginnings,  at  least,  in  the 
demand  for  facilities  for  piece-work  earnings.  I 
do  not  mean  that  this  is  the  only  factor ;  the  signi- 
ficant transition  in  motives  from  wages  to  work- 
manship has  already  been  suggested.  Still  the  be- 
ginnings were  piece  work,  and  the  interferences 
were  backed  by  the  organized  force  of  the  unions. 
There  are,  however,  other  cases  of  an  interest  on 
the  part  of  groups  of  workers  in  the  betterment 
of  technique  which  are  not  so  immediately  bound 
up  with  piece-work  earnings  and  which  are  not 
to  the  same  extent  enforced  by  the  unions.  They 
are  not,  then,  insistences  on  improvements;  they 
are  better  classed  as  suggestions  and  inventions. 
Not  as  significant  from  the  point  of  view  of  con- 
trol as  those  just  mentioned,  they  are,  neverthe- 
less, interesting  as  indicating  some  degree  of  joint 
action  in  the  development  of  industrial  technique. 
The  work  of  the  individual  inventor  is  beside 
our  point,  except  as  he  is  encouraged  and  protected 
by  collective  action.    I  heard  a  group  of  Midland 

217 


218  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

working-class  students  debating  with  great  inter- 
est the  encouragement  and  protection  of  inven- 
tors and  the  state  of  the  patent  laws ;  they  made 
no  suggestion  that  it  might  be  a  subject  for  trade 
union  and  works  committee  action.  Similarly  the 
various  schemes  of  individual  firms  for  encourag- 
ing inventions  and  suggestions, — from  the  mere 
provision  of  ' '  suggestion  boxes ' '  to  the  long-stand- 
ing and  successful  systems  of  awards  for  inven- 
tions in  force  at  William  Denny's  shipbuilding 
yard  at  Dumbarton  and  at  Barr  and  Stroud's  en- 
gineering works  at  Glasgow  and  the  similar  scheme 
introduced  in  March,  1919,  at  Cadbury's  cocoa 
works  at  Bourneville  which  produced  759  sug- 
gestions in  the  first  seven  months — are  not 
cases  of  workers'  control;  though  it  is  hardly  a 
coincidence  that  the  first  firm  mentioned  was,  as 
pointed  out  by  D.  F.  Schloss,  a  pioneer  in  devolu- 
tion of  responsibility  to  groups  of  workers  and 
that  all  three  have  highly  developed  works  com- 
mittees. 

A  works  committee  is  of  course  hardly  likely 
to  make  inventions ;  that  is  not  a  political  function. 
It  may,  as  the  Ministry  of  Labor's  report  on  Works 
Committees  suggests,  do  two  things: — (1)  create 
an  atmosphere  which  will  encourage  the  making  of 
suggestions  and  (2)  provide  the  machinery,  by 
sub-committee  or  otherwise,  for  stimulating  an 
interest  in  and  for  considering  and  testing  inven- 


SUGGESTIONS  AND  INVENTIONS       219 

tions.  As  an  illustration  of  the  need  for  the  first, 
the  former  labor  superintendent  of  an  engineering 
firm  told  me  of  a  man  who  had  been  victimized  by 
his  foreman  for  suggesting  to  the  manager  an  im- 
provement in  process.  A  sub-committee  with  a 
part  of  the  latter  function  has  just  (October,  1919) 
been  set  up  at  Cadbury's  at  the  suggestion  of  the 
workers'  side  of  the  Works  Council.  It  is  called  the 
''Brains  Committee"  and  its  object  is  to  hunt  for 
promising  talent  among  the  employees.  The  works 
manager  describes  it  as  the  ''most  talked-of  thing 
in  the  works. ' '  The  encouragement  of  inventions 
was  clearly  intended  as  an  important  part  of  the 
Whitley  scheme.  The  following  is  a  typical  clause 
from  the  list  of  functions  of  a  Joint  Industrial 
Council : — 

"The  provision  of  facilities  for  the  full  consideration 
and  utilization  of  inventions  and  improvements  designed 
by  work  people  and  for  the  adequate  safeguarding  of  the 
rights  of  the  designers  of  such  improvements."  (Paint 
Color  and  varnish  Industry.) 

So  much  for  inventions  proper;  there  is  still 
the  field  of  suggestions  in  regard  to  meeting  the 
various  practical  problems  of  organization  and 
the  planning  of  work.  This  is  obviously  a  more 
natural  subject  for  group  action  than  the  former ; 
of  this  sort  were  the  suggestions  made  by  the  Out- 
put Committees  referred  to  in  the  last  section. 


220  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

Many  works  committees  have  discussed  the  actual 
arrangement  of  work ;  the  report  by  the  Ministry 
of  Labor  says  that  ''testimony  to  the  value  of 
suggestions  [made  by  them]  .  .  .  has  been  received 
from  employers."  The  suggestions  reported  were 
usually  on  minor  matters  of  detail;  in  one  inter- 
esting case,  however,  a  committee  of  pattern-mak- 
ers suggested,  as  an  alternative  to  dilution,  the  pur- 
chase of  certain  tools  and  brought  about  a  50% 
increase  of  output/  A  recent  instance  is  even 
more  striking.  The  British  Westinghouse  Co. 
was  considering  closing  do^vn  its  foundry  on 
account  of  the  high  cost  of  production.  The 
works  manager  put  the  proposal  before  his 
shop  stewards'  committee.  The  committee  ob- 
jected and  asked  for  two  weeks  in  which  to 
collect  statistics  of  wages  in  other  foundries  in 
order  to  show  that  the  high  cost  of  production  was 
not  due  to  high  wages.  These  figures  were  pre- 
sented and  indicated  that  the  wages  in  the  foundry 
were,  if  anything,  lower  than  in  competing  ones. 
The  committee  argued  that  this  showed  that  the 
trouble  was  one  of  organization  and  asked  for  an- 
other two  weeks  in  which  to  prepare  suggestions. 
At  the  end  of  that  time  the  committee  presented 
a  memorandum  on  foundry  organization — which 
the  works  manager  described  as  the  ablest  he  had 

'  p.  30,  Works  Committees,  Industrial  Report  No.  2,  Ministry 
of  Labor. 


SUGGESTIONS  ANt>  INVENTIONS      221 

ever  seen,  and  the  firm  has  decided  to  keep  the 
foundry  going  and  to  spend  hundreds  of  pounds  in 
carrying  out  the  committee's  suggestions.  The 
encouragement  of  suggestions  is  of  course  an 
integral  part  of  the  Whitley  idea.  The  third  re- 
port of  the  Whitley  committee  says  of  the  works 
committees : — 

"They  should  always  keep  in  the  forefront  the  idea 
of  constructive  co-operation  in  the  improvement  of  the 
industry  to  which  they  belong.  Suggestions  of  all  kinds 
tending  to  improvement  should  be  frankly  welcomed  and 
freely  discussed.  Practical  proposals  should  be  exam- 
ined from  all  points  of  view.  There  is  an  undeveloped 
asset  of  constructive  ability — ^valuable  alike  to  the  in- 
dustry and  to  the  State — awaiting  the  means  of  reali- 
zation. ' ' 

These  read  like  merely  pious  and  peace-loving 
phrases;  the  argument  from  the  waste  of  ability 
in  a  system  which  discourages  suggestions,  how- 
ever, I  have  heard  from  both  sides, — from  the 
head  of  the  labor  department  of  a  manufacturers* 
association ;  from  a  foreman  in  one  of  the  National 
Factories  where  suggestions  had  been  taken  from 
both  the  foremen's  and  the  workmen's  com- 
mittees, and,  most  strikingly,  in  Mr.  William 
Straker's  evidently  sincere  reference  before  the 
Coal  Commission  to  the  ''coal-owners'  huge  blun- 
der" in  neglecting  to  use  the  practical  ability 
of  the  men.    "For  a  generation,"  says  the  first 


222  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

Sankey  report  (signed  by  the  Chairman  and 
three  employer  members  of  the  Coal  Commission), 
**the  colliery  worker  has  been  educated  socially 
and  technically.  The  result  is  a  great  national 
asset.    Why  not  use  it?" 

These  are  mainly  arguments  for  what  might  be ; 
the  actual  instances  of  workers'  activity  under 
this  head  amount  to  comparatively  little.  The 
organization  of  the  facilities  for  invention  and 
suggestions  may  become  an  important  function  of 
joint  committees.  It  implies  a  direct  assumption 
of  a  degree  of  interest  in  and  responsibility  for 
technique.  At  the  moment,  however,  it  is  a  much 
less  significant  form  of  workers '  control  than  that 
collective  enforcing  of  industrial  efficiency  men- 
tioned under  the  ** Insistence  on  Improvements." 


XVII 
TRADE  POLICY:  JOINT  ACTION 

Thebe  are  still  other  people  who  write  about 
control  who  make  a  distinction  similar  to  that 
used  in  the  transition  from  discipline  to  technique 
Their  argument  runs  like  this: — The  workers 
should  have  much  to  say  about  the  immediate 
processes  of  production,  which  are  the  stuff  of 
their  daily  life ;  but  general  trade  policy — ^buying 
and  selling,  exchange,  the  market,  the  adjustment 
of  supply  and  demand,  large-scale  research  and 
planning — is  obviously  not  their  business.  Again 
the  moral  may  be  disregarded  and  the  distinction 
used  for  classification.  Again,  however,  it  must 
be  recognized  that  it  is  not  a  rigid  one: — unem- 
ployment, for  example,  is  clearly  a  matter  of  gen- 
eral trade  policy;  there  is  no  sharply  logical  line 
that  sets  off  the  invention  of  a  device  invented  for 
use  in  a  particular  shop,  from  the  organization  of 
research  for  a  great  industry.  And  it  will  again 
be  seen,  in  this  and  the  following  section,  that  the 
unions  have  not  kept  neatly  to  one  side  of  the 
demarcation  laid  down  in  the  theory.  The  present 
section  will  consider  cases  in  which  the  unions 
have  acted  jointly  with  the  employers  in  these 

228 


224  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

matters;  the  next  with  cases  of  independent  ac- 
tion or  demands  on  the  part  of  the  workers, 

A  loose  sort  of  joint  action  between  employers* 
and  workmen's  organizations  for  the  common  pur- 
poses of  their  industries  is  of  course  no  new  thing. 
A  rudimentary  provision  for  it — ^now  superseded 
by  a  Joint  Industrial  Council — is  found  in  the 
rules  of  the  conciliation  boards  in  the  building 
trades : — 

"Although  the  principal  objects  of  the  Conciliation 
Boards  are  the  settlement  of  disputes  .  .  .,  it  shall 
also  be  within  their  province  to  meet  and  discuss  any 
question  of  trade  interest  at  the  request  of  any  of  the 
parties  to  the  agreement." 

Apparently  legislation  was  one  of  the  trade  ques- 
tions intended.  The  Plumbers'  board  made  this 
object  more  specific: — 

"To  consider  any  question  affecting  the  Plumbing 
trade  and  to  procure  the  improvement  of  any  existing 
laws,  usages  and  customs,  which  the  Bosrd  may  consider 
to  be  prejudicial  to  the  trade,  and  to  amend  or  oppose 
legislation  or  other  measures  or  the  establishment  of  any 
usages  or  customs  which  in  the  opinion  of  the  Board 
might  prejudicially  affect  our  Craft." 

The  cotton  industry  gives  the  best  examples  of 
this  sort  of  joint  action.  The  Oldham  agreement 
reads : — 


TRADE  POLICY:  JOINT  ACTION        225 

"It  is  agreed  that  in  respect  to  the  opening  of  new 
markets  abroad,  the  alteration  of  restrictive  foreign 
tariffs  and  other  similar  matters  which  may  benefit  or 
injure  the  cotton  trade,  the  same  shall  be  dealt  with  by 
a  Committee  of  three  or  more  from  each  Federation,  all 
the  Associations  agreeing  to  bring  the  whole  weight  of 
their  influence  to  bear  in  furthering  the  general  interests 
of  the  cotton  industry  in  this  country." 

This  clause  has  not  been  at  all  a  dead  letter;  as 
witness  the  recent  project  of  a  trip  to  India  and 
the  United  States  by  a  party  of  cotton  manufac- 
turers and  union  leaders,  and  the  well-known 
readiness  with  which  both  sides  of  the  cotton  in- 
dustry will  rally  against  Government  interference 
— or  answer  the  cry  of  Lancashire  against  London. 
The  logical,  though  infrequent,  extension  of  the 
sort  of  co-operation  suggested  in  the  agreement 
mentioned  is  definite  combination  to  fix  prices 
**  thereby  securing  better  profits  to  manufacturers 
and  better  profits  to  work  people ' '  at  the  consum- 
er's  expense  or  to  secure  tariff  or  other  preferen- 
tial advantages.  The  former  is  evidently  aimed 
at  in  the  rules  of  the  conciliation  board  for  china 
manufacture : — 

**  Mutual  Trade  Alliance.  ...  No  Member  of  the 
Manufacturers'  Association  shall  employ  any  workman 
who  is  not  a  Member  of  the  Operatives'  Association,  and 
no  workman  shall  take  employment  under  any  manu- 
facturer who  is  not  a  Member  of  the  Manufacturers' 


226  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

Association,  or  who  is  selling  his  goods  at  lower  prices 
than  those  which  from  time  to  time  are  decided  upon." 
(Italics  mine.) 

The  ** Birmingham  Alliances,"  in  six  branches 
of  the  light  metal  trades,  contain  the  same  arrange- 
ment and  the  definite  stipulation  that  prices  are 
to  be  set  by  a  ''Wages  Board,  to  be  formed  of  an 
equal  number  of  employers  and  employed. ' '  The 
latter  object — combination  for  trade  war  purposes 
— is  sometimes  said  to  be  a  main  part  of  the  Whit- 
ley scheme.  ''His  (the  Minister  of  Labor's) 
idea,"  said  a  trade  union  journal,  "appears  to  be 
that  joint  bodies  of  employers  and  employed  will 
be  excellent  institutions  to  conduct  a  trade  war 
after  the  war."  Some  color  is  given  to  this  view 
by  the  activity  of  one  or  two  of  the  Joint  Coun- 
cils in  asking  for  tariff  advantages^  and  "  anti- 
dumping" laws. 

It  is  not  fair,  however,  to  suggest  this  as  the 
only  motive  behind  the  Whitley  scheme  or  even  its 
chief  outlet  for  joint  action  on  trade  policy.  The 
first  stated  object  of  a  Joint  Industrial  Council 
usually  reads  something  like  this: — 

'  Cf.,  the  sneer  in  one  of  the  Daily  Herald's  "  Hymns  of  Re- 
construction,"— 

"Whitley  Councils. 
Two    opposite    sides, 
Two    opposite    sides, 
See  how  they  agree. 
See  how  they  agree! 
They  both  are  after  Protection  for  trade 
That  is  the  way  that  profits  are  made: 
No  better  example  of  mutual  aid 
Than  two  opposite  sides." 


TRADE  POLICY:  JOINT  ACTION        227 

"To  secure  the  largest  possible  measure  of  joint  action 
between  the  employers  and  work  people  for  the  safe- 
guarding and  development  of  the  industry  as  a  part  of 
national  life."    (Bobbin  and  Shuttle  Making  Industry.) 

The  proposal  by  Mr.  Malcolm  Sparkes,  a  Lon- 
don master  builder,  which  led  to  the  formation  of 
the  Joint  Industrial  Council  for  the  building 
trades  began  as  follows:— 

"The  interests  of  employers  and  employed  are  in 
many  respects  opposed;  but  they  have  a  common  inter- 
est in  promoting  the  efficiency  and  status  of  the  service 
in  which  they  are  engaged  and  in  advancing  the  well- 
being  of  its  personnel." 

And  the  phrase — "the  industry  as  a  national 
service" — ^has  at  least  got  from  the  building 
trades  constitution  into  the  conversation  of  local 
leaders.  How  much  all  this  means  in  practice  it  is 
too  early  to  say. 

It  is  worth  while,  however,  to  look  at  some  of  the 
specific  functions  suggested  under  the  head  of  this 
broad  generalization.  "The  consideration  of 
measures  for  regularizing  production  and  employ- 
ment" and  the  provisions  for  encouraging  and 
protecting  inventors  have  been  mentioned  in  earl- 
ier sections.  The  Council  for  the  Silk  Industry 
(among  others)  provides  for: — 

* '  The  regular  consideration  of,  and  the  compilation  of, 
available .  statistics  as  to  wages,  working  costs,  fluctua- 


228         THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

tions  in  the  cost  of  materials  and  Customs  tariffs,  and 
the  study  and  promotion  of  scientific  and  practical  sys- 
tems of  account  keeping." 

A  number  of  constitutions  have  clauses  such  as 
the  following:— 

"The  encouragement  of  study  and  research  with  a 
view  to  the  improvement  and  perfection  of  the  quality 
of  the  product,  and  of  machinery  and  methods  of  eco- 
nomical manufacture  in  all  branches  of  the  industry." 
(Match  Manufacturing  Industry.) 

The  program  for  the  building  trades  council 
already  quoted  was  even  more  specific  in  stating  a 
similar  object : — 

"Continuous  and  Progressive  Improvement — To  pro- 
vide a  Clearing  House  for  ideas,  and  to  investigate,  in 
conjunction  with  experts,  every  suggested  line  of  im- 
provement including,  for  example,  such  questions  as: — 
Industrial  Control  and  Status  of  Labor. 
Scientific  Management  and  Increase  of  Output. 
Welfare  Methods. 

Closer  association  between  commercial  and  aesthetic 
requirements. ' ' 

It  is  again  too  early  to  say  bow  much  these  proj- 
ects mean.  A  sub-committee  of  the  Building 
Trades  Parliament  is  making  an  attempt  to  pro- 
vide the  basis  for  a  complete  reorganization  of  the 
industry.  Its  interim  report  on  Organized  Public 
Service  in  the  Building  Industry,^  known  as  the 

'  See  Note  on   Sources. 


TRADE  POLICY:  JOINT  ACTION        229 

*' Foster  Report,"  has  already  been  referred  to 
under  ''Unemployment."  Its  recommendations, 
however,  go  much  further  than  was  there  in- 
dicated. In  addition  to  the  provisions  for  making 
unemployment  a  charge  on  the  industry  and  for 
the  regularization  of  employment,  the  report  rec- 
ommends a  regulation  of  the  Wages  of  Manage- 
ment (on  lines  admittedly  not  yet  worked  out),  a 
limitation  and  guarantee  by  the  industry  as  a 
whole  of  the  rate  of  interest  on  capital,  and  the 
disposal  of  the  surplus  earnings  of  the  industry 
at  the  discretion  of  the  Council.  The  detailed  pro- 
visions under  the  last  two  heads  are  as  follows : — 

'*The  Hiring  of  Capital. 
36.    We  recommend  that  approved  capital,  invested  in 
the  Building  Industry,  and  registered  annually  after 
audit,  shall  receive  a  limite-d  but  guaranteed  rate  of  in- 
terest, bearing  a  definite  relation  to  the  average  yield 
of  the  most  remunerative  Government  Stock.    The  fixing 
of  the  ratio  will  have  to  be  worked  out  by  further  in- 
vestigation, but  we  recommend  that  once  determined 
upon,  the   guarantee  shall   apply  to   all  firms  in  the 
Industry,  except  where  failure  to  earn  the  aforesaid  rate 
is  declared  by  the   Committee  on  the   advice   of  the 
auditors  to  be  due  to  incompetent  management.   .    .    . 
The  Surplus  Earnings  of  the  Industrff. 
40.  .    .    .  We,  therefore,  recommend: 

(a)  That  the  amount  of  the  surplus  earnings  of  the 
Industry  shall  be  publicly  declared  every 
year,  and  accompanied  by  a  schedule  of  the 
services  to  which  the  money  has  been  voted. 


230  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

(b)  That  it  shall  be  held  in  trust  by  a  National 
Joint  Committee  of  the  Building  Trades  In- 
dustrial Council,  and  shall  be  applied  to  the 
following  common  services,  which  will  be  de- 
veloped under  the  control  of  the  Industry  as 
a  whole: — 

1.  Guarantee  of  Interest  on  approved  capital,  as 
outlined  in  paragraph  36. 

2.  Loans  to  firms  in  the  Industry  for  purposes 

of  development. 

3.  Education  and  research  in  various  directions 

for  improvement  of  the  Industry,  both  in- 
dependently and  in  co-operation  with  other 
industries. 

4.  Superannuation  scheme  for  the  whole  regis- 

tered personnel  of  the  Industry, 

5.  Replacement  of  approved  capital  lost  through 

no  fault  of  the  management. 

6.  Such  other  purposes  as  may  be  thought  ad- 

visable. ' ' 

This  project  was  vigorously  and  seriously  debated 
at  one  meeting  of  the  Building  Trades  Parliament 
and  has  been  referred  back  to  the  same  Commit- 
tee for  further  consideration. 

All  these  things  mean  the  possibility  of  joint 
action,  though  in  most  cases  they  mean  little 
activity  on  the  part  of  the  rank  and  file  of  work- 
ers, on  a  wide  field  of  questions.  For  a  review 
of  the  present  situation  in  regard  to  control,  how- 
ever, they  must  be  heavily  discounted.  In  the 
older  forms  of  joint  action,  those  that  are  more 


TRADE  POLICY:  JOINT  ACTION        231 

purely  for  the  sake  of  protection  or  prices,  there 
is  little  evidence  of  labor  acting  as  anything  but 
a  very  junior  partner;  the  newer  forms  are  still 
almost  entirely  on  paper. 

This  does  not  at  all  exhaust  the  account  of  cases 
of  joint  action  on  matters  of  business  policy.  As 
has  already  been  suggested  in  earlier  sections — 
for  example  in  the  account  of  the  Westinghouse 
works  committee's  advice  on  foundry  organization 
— certain  individual  firms  have  given  opportuni- 
ties for  discussion  at  least  on  questions  that  would 
surely  be  classed  under  the  heading  of  trade 
policy.  A  number  of  firms  make  the  practice  of 
telling  their  works  committees  about  their  pros- 
pective contracts,  etc.,  and  in  some  cases  report 
considerable  keenness  on  the  part  of  their  commit- 
tees in  discussing  them.  There  was  during  the 
war  a  very  striking  experiment  of  real  workers' 
control  in  this  and  in  every  field  at  a  Newcastle 
aircraft  factory — John  Dawson  and  Co.,  Ltd.  A 
joint  body  representing  management  and  workers 
exercised  almost  the  full  powers  of  an  ordinary 
board  of  directors.  *'The  business  of  the  Works 
Council,"  says  the  pamphlet  edited  by  its  secretary 
and  published  in  March,  1919  under  the  title  of 
Democratic  Control  the  Key  to  Industrial  Pro- 
gress, *'is  to  control  matters  of  policy,  consider 
and  decide  upon  extension  or  contraction  of  busi- 
ness, and  to  provide  for  the  maintenance  of  output. 


232  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

The  Workers'  Representatives  are  elected  by  bal- 
lot, and  have  an  equal  voice  with  the  Management 
Representatives  in  all  decisions.  There  being  no 
casting  vote  it  is  essential  that  both  sides  agree  by 
a  majority  upon  any  question  that  may  arise.  In 
the  absence  of  an  agreement  the  subject  would 
remain  in  abeyance  until  a  common  ground  of 
action  could  be  arrived  at  ...  .  Broadly  speak- 
ing, the  functions  of  the  Works  Council  may  be 
defined  as  those  of  a  Management  Council  which 
issues  its  decisions  to  the  Executive  Staff  for  that 
Staif  to  carry  into  effect. 

The  decisions  of  the  Works  Council  on  matters 
of  policy  are  of  necessity  subject  in  all  cases  to 
the  control  of  the  Directors  in  regard  to  finance 
.  .  .  The  Directors  have  the  responsibility  of  con- 
trolling the  finance  and  sales  organization  of  the 
Company,  and  the  general  work  of  the  Staff. 
Whilst  they  are  unfettered  in  regard  to  the  exer- 
cise of  their  powers,  the  Works  Council  may  call 
for,  and  in  fact  receives,  all  information  in  regard 
to  the  policy  of  the  management,  expansion  of 
business  and  results  of  operations  undertaken." 
The  exclusion  of  the  Works  Council  from  financial 
control  was  explained  by  Mr.  G.  H.  Humphrey,  the 
Proprietor  and  originator  of  the  scheme,  as  a 
matter  of  banking  accommodation : — 

"Dependent  as  we  are  on  loans  and  the  Banks,  we 
have  to  maintain  a  Capitalist  front  to  the  world  and  a 


TRADE  POLICY:  JOINT  ACTION        233 

Democratic  one  to  the  workers.  As  we  are  financed  by 
loans  we  have  to  give  personal  guarantees,  and  our  per- 
sonal guarantees  have  no  weight  unless  we  own  half  the 
organization,  I  have,  therefore,  given  away  only  one 
half  of  the  voting  stock  of  the  Company,  retaining  the 
other  half  which  I  use  as  my  ballast  for  my  personal 
guarantees." 

I 

This  must  of  course  be  understood  as  one  man*s 
experiment,  and  not  as  an  illustration  of  a  large 
body  of  experience,  and  it  is  an  experiment  that 
is  no  longer  in  operation,  since  John  Dawson's, 
though  highly  successful  in  war-time  production, 
was  unable  to  finance  the  readjustment  to  peace 
conditions.  It  is,  however,  of  great  interest  as 
marking  the  most  definite  devolution  of  an  em- 
ployer's authority. 

Of  almost  equal  interest,  and  perhaps  of  greater 
importance,  was  the  -joint  action  on  trade  policy 
that  was  a  by-product  of  State  control  during  the 
war.  It  is  true  that  trade  union  and  employers' 
association  representation  on  bodies  charged  with 
public  functions  was  not  quite  unknown  before  the 
war;  there  was  a  minority  of  two  labor  members, 
for  example,  on  the  Port  of  London  Authority. 
State  action  for  war  purposes  made  the  practice 
of  real  importance.  The  State  took  over,  in  vari- 
ous degrees,  the  control  over  the  most  important 
industries  in  the  country;  in  certain  industries, 
this  control  was  largely  administered — after  early 


234  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

attempts  to  do  everything  by  State  action — • 
through  bodies  composed  in  part  of  representa- 
tives of  employers  and  employed.  This  principle, 
it  is  true,  did  not  extend  to  shipping ;  the  National 
Maritime  Board  was  a  joint  body,  but  its  func- 
tions were  merely  conciliatory.  The  railways  were 
and  are  administered  under  the  Board  of  Trade" 
by  a  Railway  Executive  Committee  of  railway 
presidents.  The  National  Union  of  Railwaymen 
asked  repeatedly  for  representation  on  this  com- 
mittee; the  request  was  denied,  but  the  following 
clause  was  inserted  in  the  1919  agreement : — 

"When  the  new  Ministry  of  Ways  and  Communica- 
tions is  set  up  it  is  the  intention  of  the  Government  to 
provide  in  the  organization  for  and  to  avail  itself  fully 
of  the  advantage  of  assistance,  co-operation,  and  advice 
from  the  workers  in  the  transportation  industry." 

Negotiations  on  this  point  are  now  (November, 
1919)  proceeding  between  the  Government  and  the 
Railwaymen.  Mr.  J.  H.  Thomas  announced  at 
Bristol  on  November  16  that  the  Government  had 
made  an  offer  to  the  unions  of  three  seats  on  the 
Railway  Executive  Committee. 

In  the  other  branches  of  the  transport  industry, 
road  transport  was  administered  without  labor 
representation ;  but  local  consultative  committees, 
on  which  the  Transport  "Workers '  Federation  was 
represented,  exercised  certain  functions  in  refer- 


TRADE  POLICY:  JOINT  ACTION        235 

ence  to  both  dock  and  canal  traffic.  The  coal  in- 
dustry was  much  under  State  supervision  from 
the  outbreak  of  the  war;  by  February,  1917,  the 
Government  had  assumed  complete  control.  At 
that  time  the  Coal  Mining  Organization  Committee, 
which  included  representatives  of  the  Miners 
(Smillie,  Hartshorn,  and  Walsh)  and  the  mine- 
owners,  and  which  had  played  an  important  part 
not  only  in  conducting  output  campaigns  but  in 
suggesting  economies  of  distribution  was  made 
into  an  Advisory  Board  to  the  Coal  Controller, 
with  equal  representation  from  the  two  sides. 
The  Miners '  Federation  was  not  satisfied  with  the 
limited  and  purely  advisory  powers  of  this  Board, 
and  at  its  1918  Conference  passed  the  following 
resolution  :— 

"In  the  opinion  of  this  Conference  the  present  form, 
of  Governmental  control  of  the  mines  tends  to  develop 
into  pure  bureaucratic  administration,  which  is  in  itself 
as  equally  inimical  to  the  interests  of  the  workmen  and 
the  industry  as  was  the  uncontrolled  form  of  private 
ownership.  We,  therefore,  propose  that,  pending  the 
complete  nationalization  of  the  mines  with  joint  control 
by  the  State  and  the  workers,  the  present  Joint  Ad- 
visory Committee  of  the  Coal  Controller  should  be  vested 
with  directive  power  jointly  with  the  Coal  Controller." 

In  South  Wales  a  Joint  Allocation  Committee 
was  set  up  to  meet  the  problem  of  distributing  or- 
ders for  the  various  grades  of  coal  to  the  different 


236         THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

collieries  in  order  to  bring  about  uniformity  of  em- 
ployment throughout  the  coalfield.  Mr.  Hodges 
described  this  as  "a  taste  of  effective  control  in 
the  allocation  of  trade,"  though  Mr.  Evan  Wil- 
liams of  the  coal-owners  insisted  that  while,  **you 
gave  us  valuable  information,"  the  scheme  itself 
*  *  was  not  put  into  operation. ' ' ' 

In  the  engineering  and  allied  industries  and 
particularly  the  production  of  munitions,  the  con- 
trol exercised  by  the  State  was  perhaps  most  direct 
and  there  was  very  little  devolution  of  authority 
(except  to  the  Munitions  Tribunals  already  men- 
tioned). In  certain  districts,  however,  notably  the 
Northeast  Coast  and  the  Clyde,  local  Munitions  of 
War  Committees  were  set  up  with  seven  employ- 
ers, seven  union  representatives  and  a  number  of 
State  nominees.  These  were  directly  charged  with 
the  function  of  accelerating  production.  Mr.  Cole 
wrote  *  of  this  as  a  step  of  great  importance : — 

"It  will  go  down  to  history  as  tlie  first  definite  and 
official  recognition  of  the  right  of  the  workers  to  a  say 
in  the  management  of  their  own  industries.  Here  for 
the  first  time  the  nominees  of  the  workers  meet  those  of 
the  masters  on  equal  terms,  to  discuss  not  merely  wages, 
hours,,  or  conditions  of  labor,  but  the  actual  business  of 
production. ' ' 

The  real  control  exercised  by  these  committees, 
however,  varied  widely  with  the  degree  of  interest 

•  Coal  Commission  Evidence,  Questions  23705-23714. 

*  Labor  in  War  Time,  p,  198. 


TRADE  POLICY:  JOINT  ACTION        237 

shown  by  the  workers   in   the   different  locali- 
ties. 

The  most  striking  examples  of  joint  administra- 
tion by  employers  and  employed  were  the  Wool 
and  Cotton  Control  Boards.  The  Government  was 
the  chief  consumer  of  wool  during  the  war.  Early 
in  1916  it  took  considerable  power  under  the 
Defence  of  the  Realm  Act  to  direct  production,  and 
in  the  same  year  bought  almost  the  entire  supply 
of  raw  material  in  order  to  establish  priorities 
for  war  work.  In  April,  1917,  an  Advisory  Com- 
mittee, on  which  the  unions  had  five  members  as 
against  twenty-four  representing  the  employers 
and  merchants,  was  set  up  and  iromediately  ex- 
tended the  system  of  priorities  and  drastically  re- 
stricted the  hours  to  be  worked  by  mills  employed 
in  the  civilian  trade.  During  August  and  Septem- 
ber, after  considerable  unrest  in  the  industry,  the 
Wool  Control  Board — eleven  representatives 
of  the  unions,  eleven  of  the  employers,  and 
eleven  of  the  War  Office  Contracts  Department — 
was  set  up  with  extensive  powers  in  organizing 
the  civilian  trade  and  full  power  to  ration  raw 
material  to  the  various  branches  of  the  industry 
and  to  the  particular  firms  engaged.  ''Clearly," 
says  the  Labor  Year  Book  (1919),  "the  principle 
of  equal  representation  of  Trade  Unions  with  the 
employers  on  a  body  possessing  such  powers 
creates  a  precedent  of  the  greatest  possible  impor- 


238         THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

tance,  and  one  which  is  still  strongly  resented  by 
some  employers  in  the  industry." 

The  Cotton  Control  Board — ^which  in  its  final 
form  consisted  of  seven  employers  and  merchants, 
seven  union  leaders,  and  two  nominees  of  the 
Board  of  Trade — exercised  even  more  important 
administrative  powers.  The  problem  in  the  case 
of  cotton  was  the  shortage  of  raw  material ;  many 
of  the  ships  that  had  formerly  brought  cotton  were 
either  sunk  or  diverted  to  other  purposes.  The 
object  of  control  was  to  regulate  the  price  of  the 
raw  material  and  to  conserve  the  supply.  The 
Control  Board  was  set  up  on  June  28,  1917;  its 
first  acts  were  to  regulate  purchases  by  a  system 
of  licenses  and  to  take  a  complete  census  of  cotton 
stocks.  It  was  soon  given  full  powers  to  fix  the 
price  of  the  raw  material  and  to  allocate  it  among 
the  different  firms.  The  latter  function  was  per- 
formed by  restricting  the  percentage  of  spindles 
that  could  be  run  on  other  than  Government  work. 
An  important  extension  of  the  Board's  duties 
resulted  from  the  effects  of  the  shortage  and  the 
consequent  restriction.  Some  provision  had  to  be 
made  for  those  unemployed.  The  arrangement 
made  was  this :  firms  were  to  be  allowed  to  exceed 
the  specified  percentage  of  spindles  on  payment 
of  a  levy  for  all  spindles  in  excess ;  this  levy  be- 
came an  unemployment  fund  which  was  admin- 
istered, on  agreed  principles,  wholly  by  the  trade 


TRADE  POLICY:  JOINT  ACTION        239 

unions.  This  was  discussed  in  Section  IV  as  an  ap- 
plication of  the  principle  that  unemployment 
should  be  a  charge  on  the  industry  and  as  a  definite 
delegation  of  responsibility  to  the  trade  unions 
for  administering  benefit. 

The  case  of  the  Cotton  Control  Board  has  been 
taken — by  Mr.  Penty,  for  example,  in  his  Indus- 
trial Crisis  and  the  Way  Out — as  a  striking  in- 
stance of  trade  union  direction  of  industry.  It  is 
easy  to  make  out  the  case.  Here  were  a  group  of 
union  leaders  on  a  Board  which  was  charged  with 
the  responsibility  of  meeting  the  problems  of  a 
great  industry  in  a  great  emergency  and  which 
was  given  almost  unlimited  powers  to  say  what 
work  should  or  should  not  be  done  and  what  ma- 
chines should  or  should  not  be  kept  running. 
These  were  great  and  executive  powers — certainly 
an  opportunity  for  positive  control.  The  best  evi- 
dence, however,  seems  to  be  that,  except  as  regards 
the  unemployment  benefit  which  they  administered 
independently  and  with  little  friction,  the  control 
exercised  by  the  union  leaders  was  more  negative 
than  positive.  They  were  there  to  see  that  no 
harm  was  done  to  the  unions;  the  constructive 
planning  was  left  almost  entirely  to  a  few  of  the 
employers  and  civil  servants.  This  was  not  be- 
cause the  union  leaders,  being  in  a  minority,  were 
voted  down;  it  was  because  they  attended  only 
the  formal  weekly  meetings — the  real  planning 


240         THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

was  done  between  them.  It  is  true  that  the  employ- 
ers at  the  end  of  the  war  hastened  to  secure  the 
abolition  of  the  board  for  fear  the  union  leaders 
would  through  it  learn  to  run  the  industry ;  there 
is  no  evidence,  however,  that  they  even  thought  of 
taking  their  position  as  an  opportunity  for  learn- 
ing control. 

Joint  action  for  commercial  purposes  is  then 
not  unheard  of.  The  Whitley  proposals  are  of 
some  importance  in  offering  a  possibility  of  widen- 
ing the  range  of  subjects.  Joint  acceptance  of 
public  responsibility  for  the  conduct  of  industry 
was  a  significant  war  development.  The  next  sec- 
tion will  discuss  the  few  trade  union  attempts  at 
independent  action  in  these  fields. 


xvin 

TRADE  POLICY:  WORKERS'  DEMANDS 

The  previous  section  dealt  with  joint  action  on 
trade  policy — action  rarely  initiated  from  the  labor 
side  and  carried  on  for  joint  purposes.  The  pres- 
ent section  deals  with  attempts  by  the  workers  to 
manipulate  trade  policy  for  their  own  purposes, 
with  their  independent  suggestions  for  improve- 
ment in  trade  policy,  and  with  their  demands  for 
trade  and  financial  information.  The  actual  in- 
stances are  less  frequent ;  the  fact  that  the  initia- 
tive comes  from  the  workers,  however,  makes 
them  of  interest  for  a  study  of  control. 

The  last  section  discussed  the  **  Birmingham 
Alliances,"  a  rare  instance  of  trade  unions  join- 
ing with  their  employers  to  rig  prices.  There 
are  also  rare  instances  of  trade  unions  trying  to 
rig  prices  on  their  own  account  by  limitation  of 
output,  or  of  trade  unions  disagreeing  with  their 
employers  as  to  the  best  means  of  rigging  prices. 
The  classic  illustration  of  the  latter  is  the  cotton 
dispute  of  1878  described  by  the  Webbs.  The  own?- 
ers  announced  a  ten  per  cent  reduction  of  wages 
to  meet  a  depression  due  to  a  glut  in  the  market. 
The  unions  argued  that  the  way  to  meet  a  glut  in 

241 


242  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

the  market  was  to  stop  overproduction,  and  of- 
fered to  accept  tlie  reduction  in  wages  on  condition 
that  the  factories  should  work  only  four  days  a 
week.  * '  One  hundred  thousand  factory  workers, '  * 
said  the  Weavers'  Manifesto,  "are  waging  war 
with  their  employers  as  to  the  best  possible  way  to 
remove  the  glut  from  an  overstocked  market,  and 
at  the  same  time  reduce  the  difficulties  arising 
from  an  insufficient  supply  of  raw  cotton.  To 
remedy  this  state  of  things  the  employers  propose 
a  reduction  of  wages.  .  .  .  We  contend  that  a  re- 
duction in  the  rate  of  wages  cannot  either  remove 
the  glut  in  the  cloth  market  or  assist  to  tide  us 
over  the  difficulty  arising  from  the  limited  supply 
of  raw  material. ' '  The  ten  weeks '  strike  over  eco- 
nomic policy  finally  ended  in  the  complete  defeat 
of  the  workers. 

The  cotton  unions  have  on  this  and  other  oc- 
casions clainied,  unsuccessfully,  a  right  to  force 
upon  the  employers  their  notions  of  the  way  to 
adjust  output  to  demand  in  order  to  maintain 
prices  and  wages.  The  Miners  alone  have  once  or 
twice  attempted  to  do  the  adjusting  on  their  own 
account.  Two  facts  may  partly  explain  this.  For 
a  long  period  of  years  the  coal-owners  in  certain 
districts,  notably  Northumberland,  had  agreed  to 
a  limitation  of  output — ''the  limitation  of  the 
vend" — for  the  purpose  of  keeping  up  the  price  of 
coal;  of  this  the  workers  were,  of  course,  aware 


TRADE  POLICY:  WORKERS'  DEMANDS     243 

and  in  Lancashire  had  even  been  at  times  parties 
to  the  agreement.  In  the  second  place,  the  miners' 
wages  in  many  districts  were  governed,  either 
under  formal  sliding  scale  agreement  or  according 
to  the  general  practice  of  arbitrators,  by  the  sel- 
ling price  of  coal ;  manipulation  of  the  selling  price 
by  the  owners  or  dealers  was  thus  felt  by  the  min- 
ers to  be  ''gambling  with  men's  wages."  It  is  not 
then  surprising  that  the  Miners  have  in  a  few 
instances  insisted  that,  "supply  and  demand 
should  be  adjusted  rather  by  diminishing  the  out- 
put than  by  forcing  coal  upon  unwilling  buyers." 
In  1892  the  Miners  saved  themselves  from  a  reduc- 
tion in  wages,  threatened  on  account  of  the  great 
surplus  stocks  of  coaP  which  the  coal-owners 
could  not  sell,  by  arbitrarily  taking  a  week's  holi- 
day. A  similar  issue  arose  just  before  the  out- 
break of  war  in  1914.  The  Scottish  Miners  were 
threatened  with  a  reduction  which  would  have 
brought  their  wages  below  the  national  minimum 
agreed  on  by  the  Miners'  Federation;  yet  they 
were  under  agreement  to  submit  to  arbitration, 
and  the  lowered  price  of  coal,  due  to  overproduc- 
tion, would  be  used  as  the  chief  argument  against 
them.  The  Scottish  union,  apparently  following 
an  expedient  sometimes  practiced  in  Lanarkshire, 
decided  to  work  only  four  days  a  week  in  order  to 

*  It  Is  very  difiScult  in  1919  to  think  back  to  a  time  when  there 
could  have  oeen  "  great  surplus  stocks  of  coal "  in  England. 


^44         THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

reduce  the  surplus  and  to  force  up  the  price.  The 
matter  was  vigorously  debated  at  a  conference  of 
the  Miners'  Federation  of  Great  Britain.  /'When 
they  were  last  before  the  neutral  chairman, ' '  said  a 
Scottish  delegate,  "one  of  the  grounds  put  for- 
ward for  the  reduction  of  25%  was  that  some  of 
the  collieries  were  only  working  two  or  three  days 
a  week,  and  because  of  the  glut  of  coal  in  the 
market  prices  were  going  down.  The  four-days 
policy  would  enable  all  their  men  to  get  an  equal 
share  of  work,  and  would  also  take  in  hand  the 
insane  competition  amongst  the  sellers  of  coal." 
The  question  was  argued  at  length.  For  the  policy 
it  was  urged  that: — 

"If  the  employers  will  not  so  regulate  the  working 
of  the  mines  as  to  prevent  the  overproduction  and  bring 
wages  up  to  a  decent  living  wage,  then  the  workers 
themselves  are  entitled  to  take  the  matters  into  their 
own  hands." 

On  the  other  hand  there  was  a  strong  feeling 
against  "the  acceptance  of  the  principle  of  the 
policy  of  restriction."  The  Conference  finally 
decided  not  to  approve  the  four-days  policy,  but 
to  support  the  Scottish  Miners  in  case  their  wages 
fell  below  the  agreed  minimum.  Within  two  weeks 
the  Great  War  had  broken  out;  and  in  the  "in- 
dustrial truce"  that  followed  immediately,  and 
with  the  increased  demand  for  coal  which  was  a 


TRADE  POLICY:  WORKERS'  DEMANDS      245 

more  lasting  effect  of  the  war,  the  issue  was  not 
pressed. 

These  direct  attempts  to  regulate  the  amount 
of  production  for  the  sake  of  wages  are  unusual 
even  in  the  two  industries  named  and  practically 
unknown  outside.  There  are,  however,  cases  of 
suggestions  for  changes  in  trade  policy  less  im- 
mediately connected  with  wages.  The  Miners' 
demand  that  ^* small  coal"  should  be  brought  to 
the  surface  and  used  and  paid  for  is  perhaps  a 
border  case.  The  demand  begins  with  wages;  it 
is  supported  by  arguments  of  the  danger  of  ''gob 
fires ' '  when  the  coal  is  stowed  in  the  workings  and 
of  the  national  waste  involved.  The  1916  Confer- 
ence resolved: — 

"That  the  Miners'  Federation  of  Great  Britain  be 
urged  to  take  immediate  steps  to  bring  before  the  Coal 
Control  Board  the  enormous  national  loss  caused  by  the 
practice  of  stowing  small  coal  in  the  workings,  with  a 
view  of  making  the  necessary  arrangements  for  secur- 
ing that  all  coal  produced  in  the  mines  should  be  sent 
to  the  surface." 

A  long-standing  argument  of  the  Miners  for  na- 
tionalization that  on  the  ground  of  conservation,  is 
clearly  a  demand  for  an  improvement  in  the  policy 
of  the  industry: — 

"Unless  we  press  for  the  nationalization  of  mines  at 
once  there  will  be  nothing  but  the  worst  seams  left  for 
the  nation  to  work." 


246  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

A  very  large  part  of  the  Miners'  case  before  the 
Coal  Commission  was  taken  up  with  the  argument 
on  technical  grounds  that  unification  by  national- 
ization would  make  possible  a  number  of  improve- 
ments^—the  pooling  of  privately-owned  railway 
trucks,  for  example — in  trade  policy. 

The  most  conspicuous  instance  of  a  trade  union 
suggesting  schemes  for  the  improvement  of  its 
industry  is  that  of  the  Postal  and  Telegraph 
Clerks'  Association.  Some  years  ago  its  parent 
society  (United  Kingdom  Postal  Clerks'  Associa- 
tion) printed  a  pamphlet  containing  a  scheme  for 
extending  the  service  by  the  institution  of  a  postal 
banking  scheme.    Its  foreword  read : — 

"With  a  view  to  bringing  before  the  public  the  pos- 
sibilities of  the  British  Postal  Service  as  a  means  of  pro- 
viding the  business  community  and  the  general  public 
with  the  facilities  for  the  transaction  of  business,  the 
United  Kingdom  Postal  Clerks'  Association  has  been 
tabulating  evidence  and  information  concerning  the 
Postal  Services  of  other  countries. 

This  pamphlet  outlines  the  most  remarkable  feature  of 
Post  Office  activity  which  has  taken  place  during  the  last 
five  years,  viz.,  the  development  of  the  Post  Office  Bank- 
ing Business  for  the  transmission  of  moneys,  known  as 
the  Postal  Cheque  and  Transfer  Service. 

The  importance  of  the  subject  from  a  business  stand- 

"  These  suggestions  are  listed  in  two  of  the  first  set  of  reports 
issued  by  the  Coal  Commission — that  of  Justice  Sankey  and  three 
employers  and  that  of  the  six  labor  representatives.  Cmd.  87 
and  85. 


TRADE  POLICY:  WORKERS'  DEMANDS      247 

point  has  impelled  the  Postal  Clerks*  Association  to 
place  this  matter  before  the  public  with  a  view  to  direct- 
ing attention  to  Postal  affairs,  so  that  the  Post  Office 
Authorities  may  be  induced  to  improve  and  develop  the 
Service  on  the  lines  indicated." 

With  either  the  details  or  the  merits  of  the  pro- 
ject, this  inquiry  is,  of  course,  not  concerned;  the 
point  is  that  it  represents  the  expenditure  of  trade 
union  money  and  energy  in  attempting  to  force 
what  is  believed  to  be  an  improvement  of  the  ser- 
vice in  which  its  members  are  engaged.  Appar- 
ently this  intention  is  still  of  importance  to  the 
Postal  and  Telegraph  Clerks.  A  resolution 
passed  at  their  1916  Conference  declared : — 

"This  Conference  is  convinced  that  .  .  .  the  most 
effective  work  which  the  Executive  Committee  can  ac- 
complish during  the  period  immediately  before  us  will 
'be  by  applying  itself  to  consideration  of  the  problem  of 
development  of  the  Service,  having  in  mind  the  needs 
of  the  community,  the  possibility  of  increased  services 
to  the  community  ..."  and  the  betterment  of  condi- 
tions for  the  staff. 

Another  resolution  passed  at  the  same  Confer- 
ence shows  the  direct  bearing  of  this  sort  of  inter- 
est in  industry  on  the  problem  of  control : — 

"Having  in  view  the  possibility  of  the  Association  as- 
suming in  the  future  more  direct  and  active  participa- 


248  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

tion  in  the  administration  of  the  Postal  Service,  this 
Conference  recommends  the  organization  within  the 
branches  of  circles  for  'craft'  study  and  discussion. 
Members  of  the  Association  only  to  be  admitted  to  such 
circles. ' '   ■ 

The  Branch  moving  the  resolution  had  already 
started  such  a  study  group.  Similarly  the  Execu- 
tive Committee  urged  the  rank  and  file  to  educate 
themselves  to  apply  the  Whitley  report  and  in 
turn  to  use  the  Whitley  scheme  as  an  education  in 
control :  ^ — 

**  Members  should  begin  to  study  minutely  the  con- 
ditions of  their  offices  and  the  history  of  trade  and  in- 
dustry, so  that  when  the  time  comes  they  are  prepared 
to  administer  the  principle  with  a  statesmanship  worthy 
of  a  great  trade  union." 

In  more  than  one  union  the  preaching  of  the 
study  of  the  industry  as  a  step  toward  control  has 
been  part  of  recent  propaganda  by  the  leaders.* 
The  fear  of  just  this  was  a  reason  for  the  employ- 
ers'  objection  to  the  Cotton  Control  Board  already 
referred  to —  the  fear  that  the  union  leaders  would 
learn  too  much  about  finance,^  perhaps  by  hearing 

•  In  a  speech  condemning  the  Whitley  report  as  oflFering  no 
real  workers'  control,  I  heard  one  of  the  ablest  of  the  younger 
advocates  of  control  taking  this  attitude  toward  the  labor  sym- 
pathizers on  the  Whitley  committee: — don't  blame  them;  they 
were  trying  to  provide  a  training  ground. 

*  One'  of  thera  declared,  however  that,  "  you  might  as  well  talk 
to  wooden  dummies." 

'  The  cotton  union  secretaries  had  long  had  the  reputation  of 
knowing  a  great  deal  about  the  financial  position  of  their  industry. 


TRADE  POLICY:  WORKERS'  DEMANDS     249 

the  merchants  and  manufacturers  accuse  each 
other  of  profiteering.  The  labor  side  of  the  Wool 
Control  Board  was  more  conscious  of  this  pos- 
sibility, and  several  of  the  leaders  regret  bitterly 
the  chance  lost  by  not  putting  a  representative  on 
the  full-time  staff  of  the  Board. 

This  desire  for  a  general  knowledge  of  the  work- 
ings of  industry  and  finance  with  a  direct  eye  to 
learning  control  is  confined  to  a  very  few.  The 
demand  for  publicity  of  profits  is  a  widespread 
one.  Oh  yes,  said  a  trade  union  leader  to  me,  the 
employers  will  discuss  anything  with  us  '' except 
perhaps  costing  amd  profits.'^  Here  is  another 
keenly-felt  frontier  of  control.  It  was  touched  on 
by  a  Scottish  miner  in  the  debate  on  the  Miners' 
Four  Days  in  1914: — 

"If  any  such  increase  in  the  cost  of  production  has 
taken  place,  they  [the  employers]  will  have  to  open  their 
books  and  prove  it,  and  further,  we  want  to  know  what 
profits  have  been  during  these  periods  on  the  price  ob- 
tained. They  say  they  will  never  open  their  books  to 
us  and  show  their  profits,  as  in  their  opinion  we  have 
nothing  to  do  with  profits ;  that  is  a  question  for  them. ' ' 

By  1919  the  coal-owners  were  in  fact  opening 
their  books  to  show  their  profits  to  the  Coal  Com- 
mission. 

D.  F.  Schloss  quoted  one  of  them  as  follows  j — ^''We  know  .  . 
the  j!;eneral  rate  of  profits,  depreciation,  costs,  etc.,  .  .  ,  and 
we  know  that  after  we  have  got  our  wages  out  of  it,  and  we 
leave  the  balance  to  the  employer,  he  has  nothing  to  make  a  great 
noise  about." 


250  THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

It  is  hard  to  overestimate  the  importance  of  the 
ComLmission  in  this  connection,  first,  because  of 
the  actual  profits  revealed,  second,  because  of  the 
Commission's  practically  unanimous  recommenda- 
tion in  favor  of  future  publicity  of  profits,  and 
third,  because  of  its  effect  in  encouraging  a  similar 
demand  in  other  trades.  The  first  result  is  of  no 
concern  for  the  present  inquiry.  The  second  is 
of  importance  and  has  been  given  comparatively 
little  public  attention  for  the  very  reason  that  it 
was  an  agreed  recommendation.  The  Chairman's 
report  and  Sir  Arthur  Duckham's  are  on  this  mat- 
ter identical  in  substance.  The  latter  reads  as 
follows : — 

"It  is  essential  that  there  should  be  complete  pub- 
licity as  to  the  operations  and  financial  results  of  the 
coal  industry.  The  Ministry  of  Mines  should  be  ex- 
pressly charged  with  the  duty  of  publishing,  not  less 
than  once  a  year,  figures  showing  the  cost  of  getting  coal 
in  each  of  the  districts  of  the  country,  and  the  propor- 
tion chargeable  to  materials,  wages,  general  expenses, 
interest,  profits,  and  other  general  items. ' ' 

The  other  five  employers  do  not  touch  definitely 
upon  this  point  in  their  recommendations,  but  they 
quote  with  evident  approval  the  even  more  em- 
phatic opinion  expressed  in  the  evidence  and 
scheme  submitted  by  the  Mining  Association  of 
Great  Britain: — 


TRADE  POLICY:  WORKERS'  DEMANDS      251 

''The  authors  [of  the  coal-owners'  project]  contend 
that  want  of  knowledge  with  respect  to  prices,  costs  and 
profits,  and  the  absence  of  machinery  conferring  upon 
the  workers  opportunities  for  obtaining  information  and 
influencing  the  conditions  under  which  they  work  have 
been  to  a  great  extent  the  cause  of  the  existing  discon- 
tent. 

The  authors  propose  th^t,  in  future,  fluctuations  of 
the  wages  of  the  workers  in  each  mining  district,  over 
and  above  the  minimum  rates,  should,  instead  of  being 
regulated  solely  as  in  the  past  by  selling  prices,  be  regu- 
lated by  reference  also  to  costs  and  profits  in  that  dis- 
trict. 

For  this  purpose,  average  prices,  costs  and  profits  in 
each  district  are  to  he  jointly  ascertained,  so  that  the 
workers  may  he  able  in  future  to  discuss  questions  of 
wages  with  a  complete  knowledge  of  the  results  of  the 
industry  in  that  district."     (Italics  mine.) 


On  the  third  point — ^the  influence  which  the  great 
publicity  of  the  Commission's  work  has  had  in 
encouraging  similar  demands  in  other  industries 
it  is  too  early  to  gather  much  evidence.  One  ex- 
pression of  it,  from  a  prominent  building  trades 
official,  was  something  like  this : — we  '11  never  again 
accept  the  plea  that  they  can't  afford  an  advance 
until  they  show  us  the  books ! 

These  trade  union  demands  on  the  subject  of 
trade  policy  are  neither  many  nor  of  frequent  oc- 
currence, but  the  range  they  cover  is  significantly 
wide.    In  a  few  cases  the  unions  have  tried  to  alter 


252         THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

their  employers'  trade  policy  in  adjusting  output 
to  demand.  In  others  they  have  suggested  specific 
improvements  in  trade  policy.  And  finally  they 
have  made  some  claim  to  be  shown  the  inner 
workings  of  the  business  direction  of  industry. 


XIX 
THE  EXTENT  OF  CONTROL 

The  attempt  has  been  made  in  the  preceding  sec- 
tions to  indicate  the  specific  sorts  of  control  of  in- 
dustry now  exercised  by  organized  workers  in 
Great  Britain.  I  know  no  way  of  adding  these 
and  making  a  neat  sum.  How  much  control  have 
the  workers  got?  There  is  no  use  in  making  gen- 
eral answers,  like  ''very  little"  or  "a  good  deal." 
But  in  weighing  and  judging  the  extent  of  control, 
certain  distinctions  which  have  been  implicit  in  the 
previous  discussion  are  worth  making  explicit. 

'' Agreeable  control  is  better  than  enforced  con- 
trol," I  heard  a  Birmingham  toolmaker  say.  "In- 
vasion, not  admission,  should  be  the  trade  union- 
ist's watchword,"  said  one  of  the  prominent  Guild 
Socialists.  The  distinction  is  of  some  importance. 
Which  is  better  depends  on  what  you  want,  and  on 
economy  of  effort  in  getting  it ;  but,  from  the  point 
of  view  of  definition,  enforced  control  is  control 
in  a  more  real  sense.  There  is  a  significant  psycho- 
logical difference  between  "admission"  and  "in- 
vasion, ' '  between  control  presented  to  and  control 
seized  by  a  trade  union.    The  distinction  may  be 

263 


254.         THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

made  clearer  by  illustration.  When  **  Bedstead 
Smith"  organized  the  first  of  the  ''Birmingham 
Alliances ' '  and  let  the  trade  unions  come  in  on  the 
deal,  the  sort  of  workers'  ''control"  over  price- 
fixing  that  resulted  was  a  very  different  thing  from 
the  sort  of  control  that  would  have  resulted,  say, 
if  the  "Miners'  Four  Days"  policy  in  1914  had 
been  applied  and  had  raised  the  price  of  coal. 
Control  implies  initiative;  for  that  reason,  forms 
of  control  entirely  initiated  from  above  must  be 
ruled  out  unless  or  until  they  are  shown  to  involve 
workers '  activity  as  well  as  acquiescence.  On  that 
ground  co-partnership  and  similar  bits  of  "con- 
trol" offered  to  workers  in  connection  with  profit- 
sharing  schemes  have  been  left  out  of  consider- 
ation. This  same  distinction  accounts  for  the 
paradox  of  a  refusal  of  control  pointed  out  with 
such  surprise  in  the  chairman's  statement  of  the 
Ebbw  Vale  Steel,  Iron,  and  Coal  Co.  (July  2, 
1919)  :— 


"After  very  mature  consideration  your  directors  de- 
cided to  extend  an  invitation  to  one  of  the  great  trade 
unions  to  nominate  one  of  their  number  to  occupy  a 
seat  on  this  board.  We  felt  that  the  presence  of  a  rep- 
resentative of  labor  on  this  board,  with  all  the  privileges, 
with  all  the  responsibilities  of  an  ordinary  director, 
would  perhaps  give  him  the  opportunity  of  realizing  the 
many  difficulties  which  from  time  to  time  confront  those 
men  whose  duty  it  is  to  control  the  destinies  of  our  great 


THE  EXTENT  OF  CONTROL  255 

industrial  campanies.  We  felt  that  in  realizing  and  ap- 
preciating our  difficulties  lie  might  possibly  be  able  to 
take  a  broader  view  of  the  many  questions  which  have 
from  time  to  time  to  be  settled  between  capital  and 
labor;  we  felt  that  the  presence  of  a  representative  of 
labor  on  this  board  would  have  given  an  opportunity  to 
myself  and  to  my  colleagues  to  have  learned  the  views 
of  labor  at  first  hand. 

"I  regret  to  say  our  invitation  to  labor  has  been  re- 
fused. In  that  I  am  somewhat  surprised  and  consid- 
erably disappointed.  If  labor  seeks  to  control  industry, 
then  labor  should  be  prepared  to  serve  its  apprenticeship 
side  by  side  with  men  who  have  made  it  their  lifelong 
study." 

Eeal  control  of  industry  cannot  be  presented 
like  a  Christmas-box. 

Certain  of  the  advocates  of  ''control"  push  this 
distinction  even  to  the  point  of  saying  that  joint 
control  cannot  be  in  any  sense  workers'  control. 
Mr.  J.  T.  Murphy,  the  spokesman  of  the  Shop 
Stewards'  Movement,  publishes  an  attack  on  the 
Whitley  proposals  with  the  significant  title, 
''Compromise  or  Independence,"  in  which  he 
says  that: — 

"A  'joint'  committee  can  only  be  a  committee  of  em- 
ployers and  employees  formed  to  prevent  any  encroach- 
ment on  the  power  of  the  dominant  body,  in  this  case 
the  employers." 

But  this  is  surely  an  overstatement.  The  Build- 
ing Trades  Council's  committee  on  "Organized 


256         THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

Public  Service"  hardly  fits  Mr.  Murphy's  defini- 
tion; and  it  is  impossible  to  imagine  Mr.  Smillie, 
for  example,  losing  his  independence  by  sitting 
on  a  joint  body  like  the  Coal  Mining  Organization 
Committee.  It  is  impossible  to  rule  out  all  forms 
of  joint  control;  the  test  must  be  whether  in  the 
particular  instance  of  joint  control  the  workers' 
side  is  independently  active.  Joint  control  when 
the  lead  is  entirely  from  the  employing  side — as 
in  co-partnership  and  the  "Birmingham  Alli- 
ances"— may  be  disregarded.  But  the  Whitley 
Councils  must  be  studied  and  judged  by  their  ac- 
tions; the  classification  of  each  council  depends 
not  on  its  constitution  but  on  the  purely  empirical 
question  whether  the  chief  function  of  the  workers ' 
side  is  to  be  that  of  junior  partnership  in  petition- 
ing for  Protection  and  similar  favors  from  the 
Government  or  whether,  as  is  already  the  case  in 
the  Building  Trades  Council,  the  workers'  side  is 
to  play  an  active  part  in  shaping  policy.  ''One 
point,  however,  must  be  made  clear,"  says  Mr. 
Malcolm  Sparkes,  the  chief  founder  of  that  council, 
in  an  article  maintaining  that  the  Industrial  Coun- 
cil Movement  is  going  in  the  same  direction  as  the 
Shop  Stewards '  Movement.  •' '  In  itself  the  Indus- 
trial Council  is  no  solution  for  the  problem  of  con- 
trol. It  is,  however,  an  instrument  that  can  pro- 
duce the  solution."  The  same  test  of  actual  in- 
dependence of  function  applies  also  to  joint  bodies 


THE  EXTENT  OF  CONTROL  257 

exercising  state-given  powers.  This  was  the  basis 
of  the  questions  asked  in  Section  XVII  about  the 
Cotton  Control  Board.  So  with  the  various 
schemes  of  voluntary  '^devolution  of  managerial 
functions. "  The  initiative  here  is  clearly  from  the 
top.  Mr.  Humphrey  of  John  Dawson's  makes  the 
distinction  in  the  pamphlet  already  cited : — 

"There  is  a  likelihood  of  a  great  educative  movement 
amongst  the  working  classes  as  a  result  of  which  they 
will  take  a  large  measure  of  control,  and  their  obstruc- 
tive employers  will  wish  they  had  given  joint  control  in 
their  own  works  when  they  had  the  chance  to  do  it 
gracefully. ' ' 

Until  such  schemes  are  actively  taken  up  by  the 
workers,  they  amount  to  nothing  in  the  way  of 
control,  however  much  they  cover  on  paper.  But 
when  or  if  they  are  so  taken  up,  they  should  not 
be  ruled  out  because  of  their  origin;  what  begins 
as  a  gift  may  become  a  right.  The  line  between 
"agreeable"  and  ''enforced"  control,  or  better  be- 
tween dependent  and  mdependent  control,  must 
be  drawn  not  on  the  ground  of  the  origin  of  con- 
trol or  even  of  the  extent  of  control,  but  solely 
by  the  test  of  whether  or  not  the  workers'  side 
does  actually  exert  an  independent  force. 

A  similar  distinction,  and  one  more  frequently 
drawn,  is  that  between  negative  and  positive  con- 


258         THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

trol.  It  is  a  commonplace  that  the  control  now 
exercised  by  the  workers  is  mainly  negative — that 
they  may  sometimes  say  *'no,"  or  say  that  work 
must  not  be  done,  or  changes  must  not  be  intro- 
duced, except  under  certain  conditions,  but  they 
can  very  rarely  say  that  this  or  that  must  be  done. 
They  are  in  the  position,  as  Mr.  Tawney  says,  of 
''an  Opposition  that  never  becomes  a  Govern- 
ment." It  is  easy  to  confirm  this  from  the  in- 
stances given;  most  of  the  ''trade  union  con- 
ditions"— of  hiring,  apprenticeship,  demarcation, 
and  the  rest — are  clearly  negative.  It  is  much 
shorter  to  enumerate  the  instances  of  positive  con- 
trol. In  the  staffing  of  shops  and  in  the  selection 
of  foremen,  the  Stuff  Pressers  exercise  positive 
choice.  There  are  other  cases  of  independent  ad- 
ministration by  the  workers  within  sharply  limited 
fields,  for  example  by  the  printers'  "clicker"  in 
allocating  work  and  by  the  miners '  safety  inspec- 
tors. The  workmen  directors  at  Dawson's  were 
charged  with  positive  functions;  certain  shop 
stewards  actually — though  not  in  name — exercised 
directive  powers  during  the  war.  And  finally  there 
are  the  "Insistences  on  Changes  in  Technique" 
by  the  Miners'  output  committees  and  others, 
which  were  emphasized  because  of  the  great  cur- 
rent significance  of  this  distinction.  Positive  con- 
trol covers  then  only  a  very  small  proportion  of 
the  cases  even  of  that  independent  control  defined 


THE  EXTENT  OF  CONTROL  259 

in  the  preceding  paragraph.  On  the  other  hand, 
a  number  of  the  newer  demands  are  put  forward 
with  just  this  sort  of  control  in  mind.  The  Clyde 
committee,  whose  proposals  were  quoted  in  Section 
XV,  wanted  the  right  to  say  not  under  what  con- 
ditions machinery  might  be  introdileed  but  actually 
where  it  should  be  introduced.  The  object  of  the 
scheme  of  collective  contract  put  forward  is  to 
'  *  take  over  a  whole  province ' '  of  industrial  direc- 
tion from  the  employers.  In  fact  the  essence  of 
the  new  demand  of  labor,  as  was  stated  by  Mr. 
Henry  Clay  in  the  Observer,  is  for  ''participation 
in  the  direction  and  not  merely  in  the  regulation 
of  industry."  Insistence  on  this  distinction* does 
not  imply  that  regulation  and  negative  control  are 
not  real  control  or  that  they  are  not  of  great  im- 
portance. The  standard  of  foremanship,  for  ex- 
ample, is  maintained  almost  entirely  by  the  highly 
negative  process  of  insurgence.  And  the  right  to 
say  yes  or  no  shades  very  easily  into  the  right  to 
say  which  or  what.  But  the  distinction  is  worth 
emphasizing,  as  indicating  the  new  Frontier  of 
Control — over  which  the  conscious  struggle  is 
marked  on  the  one  hand  by  Mr.  Frank  Hodges' 
demand  on  behalf  of  the  workers  for  ''the  daily 
exercise  of  directive  ability"  and  on  the  other  by 
Lord  Gainford's  testimony  before  the  Coal  Com- 
mission : — 


260         THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

"I  am  authorized  to  say  on  behalf  of  the  Mining 
Association  that  if  owners  are  not  to  be  left  complete 
executive  control  they  will  decline  to  accept  the  respon- 
sibility of  carrying  on  the  industry." 


A  third  distinction — and  one  that  I  have  no- 
where seen  definitely  stated — is  that  between  what 
might  be  called  old  craft  or  customary  control  on 
the  one  hand  and  conscious  or  contagious  control 
on  the  other.  This  is  based  not  on  the  greater  or 
less  degree  of  ''reality"  of  control  exercised  but 
on  the  nature  and  policy  of  the  union  exercising 
it.  It  is  a  distinction  of  no  importance  if  the  ob- 
ject of  inquiry  is  merely  the  static  one  of  present- 
ing the  sum  of  instances  of  control.  But  for  any 
study  in  terms  of  process,  for  any  study  that  pre- 
tends to  estimate  moving  tendencies,  it  seems  to 
me  of  the  highest  importance.  The  more  striking 
instances  of  control  already  mentioned  fall  quite 
clearly  into  two  main  classes: — on  the  one  hand 
control  long  exercised  as  a  customary  right  by  con- 
servative, exclusive,  and  usually  small  unions  in 
old  skilled  crafts,  fighting  if  at  all  only  to  resist 
' '  encroachments ' '  on  their  ancient  privileges ;  and 
on  the  other  hand  control  newly  and  consciously 
won  by  aggressive,  propagandist,  usually  indus- 
trial, unions  in  the  great  organized  industries, 
fighting  not  to  resist  encroachments  but  to  make 
them.   The  Stuff  Pressers,  the  Hand  Papermakers, 


THE  EXTENT  OF  CONTROL  261 

the  Glass  Bottle  Makers,^  the  Calico  Printers  and, 
less  typically,  the  Compositors  are  instances  of 
the  former  class  of  unions.  The  Miners  and  the 
Railwaymen  are  the  most  highly-developed  ex- 
amples of  the  latter.  Cases  of  these  two  sorts  of 
control,  or  of  the  first  sort  and  of  the  demand  for 
the  second,  have  been  set  down  side  by  side  in 
almost  every  section: — full  control  over  employ- 
ment exercised  by  the  Stuff  Pressers  and  full  con- 
trol over  employment  demanded  by  certain  indus- 
trial unionists  among  the  Engineers;  sharing  of 
work  long  practised  by  the  Yorkshire  Glass  Bottle 
Makers  and  rationing  of  employment  demanded  by 
the  Clyde  Engineers ;  the  Hand  Papermakers  long 
guaranteed  ''six  days'  custom"  and  the  Railway- 
men  this  year  securing  a  guaranteed  weekly  wage ; 
the  Stuff  Pressers  choosing  their  own  foremen  and 
the  activists  among  Engineers,  Miners,  Railway- 
men,  and  Postal  Workers  pushing  for  the  right; 
Compositors  and  Miners  alike  enforcing  a  stand- 
ard of  foremanship  and  preventing  ** policing"; 
the  printers'  clicker  allocating  work  by  long  cus- 
tom and  certain  Tramwaymen  securing  it  as  a 
new  right;  co-operative  work  in  the  Cornish  tin 
mines  and  collective  contract  a  new  demand  of 
Glasgow  engineers;  and  so  on.  The  difference 
then  is  not  primarily  in  the  actual  bits  of  control 
exercised,  nor  is  it  merely  a  matter  of  the  date 

*  See  above,  p.  168.  .    .  • 


262         THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

of  acquisition  of  power.  If  the  latter  difference 
did  not  carry  with  it  a  totally  different  attitude  of 
mind  and  if,  for  example,  an  official  of  the  Stuff 
Pressers  toured  the  country  with  Mr.  Frank 
Hodges  of  the  Miners  and  seconded  the  latter 's 
speeches  on  behalf  of  *' Workers'  Control"  by 
stating  that  his  union  had  had  some  workers '  con- 
trol and  had  found  it  good,  the  distinction  might 
very  well  be  ignored.  But  in  point  of  fact,  nothing 
like  this  does  or  could  happen.  In  the  first  place, 
the  old  crafts  have  no  theories  of  the  value  of  con- 
trol for  control's  sake.  Just  for  this  reason  the 
Stuff  Pressers  are  giving  up  their  right  to  elect 
foremen  almost  without  protest,  since  the  change 
is  going  on  with  no  immediate  practical  loss. 
Similarly  the  old  crafts  are  thoroughly  conserva- 
tive; they  are  engaged  in  defending  "established 
expectations"  ^  just  as  definitely  as  the  advocates 

*  The  old  craft  type  of  mind  is  best  described  on  p.  671  of 
Industrial  Democracy : — "  The  Doctrine  of  Vested  Interests.  .  .  . 
is  naturally  strongest  in  the  remnants  of  the  time-honored  ancient 
handicrafts.  Those  who  have  troubled  to  explore  the  nooks  and 
crannies  of  the  industrial  world,  which  have  hitherto  escaped  the 
full  intensity  of  the  commercial  struggle,  will  have  found  in  them 
a  peculiar  type  of  Trade  Union  character.  Wherever  the  Doc- 
trine of  Vested  Interests  is  still  maintained  by  the  workmen,  and 
admitted  by  the  employers — where,  that  is  to  say,  the  conditions 
of  employment  are  consciously  based,  not  on  the  competitive 
battle  but  on  the  established  expectations  of  the  different  classes 
— we  find  an  unusual  prevalence,  among  the  rank  and  file,  of  what 
we  may  call  the  'gentle'  nature — that  conjunction  of  quiet  dig- 
nity, grave  courtesy,  and  consideration  of  other  people's  rights 
and  feelings,  which  is  usually  connected  with  old  family  and  long- 
established  position.  But  this  type  of  character  becomes  every 
day  rarer  in  the  Trade  Union  world."  No  contract  could  be 
sharper  than  that  between  this  "  gentleness  "  and  the  aggressive- 


THE  EXTENT  OF  CONTROL  263 

of  the  newer  control  are  in  the  broad  sense  revolu- 
tionary and  out  to  attack  ''established  expecta- 
tions. ' '  The  father  of  a  compositors '  chapel  talks 
of  the  London  * '  Scale ' '  with  much  the  same  rever- 
ence that  a  thoroughgoing  engineers '  shop  steward 
saves  for  the  Social  Revolution.  And  as  a  natural 
corollary,  the  old  crafts  are  exclusive  and  aristo- 
cratic and  play  little  part  in  the  labor  movement ; 
the  advocates  of  the  newer  control  are  widely 
propagandist.  The  Stuff  Pressers  keep  themselves 
to  themselves  and  hug  their  monopoly ;  the  authors 
of  the  Miners'  Next  Step  are  propagandists  for 
control  on  the  expressed  ground  that  :— 

*  *  We  cannot  get  rid  of  employers  and  slave-driving  in 
the  mining  industry,  until  all  other  industries  have 
organized  for  and  progressed  towards  the  same  objec- 
tive. Their  rate  of  progress  conditions  ours ;  all  we  can 
do  is  to  set  an  example  and  the  pace. '  * 

This  difference  in  intention  clearly  makes  a 
difference  in  results.  Nobody  supposes  that  the 
Railwaymen  demanded  a  guaranteed  week  because 
the  Hand  Papermakers  had  one ;  on  the  other  hand, 

ness  of  the  modern  advocate  of  the  Doctrine  of  Workers'  Control. 
The  latter  temper  at  its  extreme  may  be  indicated  by  a  few  sen- 
tences from  one  of  J.  T.  Murphy's  pamphlets: — "They  [the  em- 
ployers] struggled  through  the  centuries  to  obtain  their  power. 
We  also  of  the  working-class  have  come  through  the  long  years 
of  strife  and  have  suffered  their  batterings  and  their  spite.  We 
do  not  squeal.  Struggle  is  the  law  of  life.  As  we  see  they  rose 
on  the  backs  of  our  class  we  see  and  feel  now  the  gathering 
power  of  the  labor  hosts." 


264         THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

the  publicity  of  profits  which  the  Miners  secured 
through  the  Coal  Conunission  almost  immediately 
becomes  a  demand  in  other  trades.  This  distinc- 
tion is  of  great  importance  in  estimating  the  po- 
tential significance  of  these  forms  of  workers '  con- 
trol. Old  craft  control  is  traditional  and  clings  on 
but  does  not  spread.  On  the  other  hand,  news  of 
each  ''invasion"  made  by  the  theorists  and  propa- 
gandists of  the  newer  control  is  carried  to  other 
trades  and  made  the  basis  of  agitation  there.  It 
is  for  this  reason  that  the  word  ''contagious" 
seems  a  significant  one  for  describing  this  newer 
and  more  conscious  control.  The  two  things  are 
not  the  same: — old  craft  control  almost  neces- 
sarily implies  small  groups  of  skilled  workers ;  the 
advocates  of  contagious  control  are  for  the  most 
part  either  members  of  industrial  unions  or  strong 
advocates  of  industrial  unionism;  the  temper  of 
the  old  crafts  is  monopolistic  and  conservative; 
that  of  the  latter,  propagandist  and  revolutionary. 
Undoubtedly  there  is  some  slight  degree  of  cross- 
influence,  just  as  the  various  attempts  at  inde- 
pendent associations  of  producers  have  no  doubt 
had  some  influence  on  the  present  and  very  differ- 
ent demand  for  control.  The  printing  unions  are 
by  no  means  isolated  from  the  general  tendencies 
of  the  labor  movement,^  and  of  course  there  are 

•  The  printing  unions  were  among  the  first  to  oiFer  their  help 
to  the  Railwaymen  during  the  recent  strilce. 


THE  EXTENT  OF  CONTROL  265 

many  unions  of  various  sorts  between  the  two 
extreme  types  indicated  here.  But  the  types  are 
widely  and  fundamentally  different,  and  it  seems 
to  me  almost  futile  to  argue  from  the  experience 
of  one  to  the  other: — equally  futile,  for  example, 
to  argue  that  direct  election  of  foremen  would  be 
a  good  thing  for  all  industry  because  it  worked 
for  a  long  time  with  the  Stuff  Pressers,  or  to  argue 
that  the  right  to  elect  foremen  is  proved  of  no 
use  to  other  workmen  because  the  Stuff  Pressers 
are  giving  it  up  without  protest.  And  for  the 
purpose  of  attempting  to  forecast  future  develop- 
ments, the  distinction  is  of  the  highest  importance. 
It  raises  the  entire  question  of  the  historical  rela- 
tion between  the  type  of  industrial  technique  and 
the  type  of  industrial  government.  You  cannot 
base  a  theory  of  modern  industry  on  the  tin  mines 
of  Cornwall.  Old  craft  control  is  a  survival  from 
an  earlier  technology  and  is  clearly  dying  out  with 
the  industrial  conditions  that  made  it  possible. 
Contagious  control  is  a  demand  made  in  view  of 
the  newer  industrial  technique ;  the  judgment  as  to 
whether  or  not  it  is  to  grow  must  be  made  in- 
dependently of  the  decay  of  the  other. 

The  answer  to  the  question,  How  much  controls 
depends,  then,  on  whether  or  not  the  question  it- 
self is  qualified  in  any  of  the  three  senses  indicated 
above.    If  it  is  not  qualified,  the  nearest  answer 


266         THE  FRONTIER  OF  CONTROL 

that  can  be  given  is : — all  the  control  indicated  in 
the  earlier  sections  and  whatever  more  may  be 
thought  of  under  co-partnership  or  other  devices 
of  ''industrial  peace."  K  the  question  is  how 
much  independent  control? — and  this  seems  to  me 
the  broadest  sense  in  which  the  term  ''control'* 
can  be  used  with  any  significance — the  few  cases 
mentioned  in  which  the  initiative  lies  entirely  with 
the  employers  must  be  ruled  out,  and  all  instances 
of  joint  control  must  be  narrowly  examined  to  see 
whether  they  involve  workers'  activity  or  merely 
workers'  acquiescence.  If  the  question  is  how 
much  positive  control? — and  this  question  is  of 
importance  as  marking  the  newest  Frontier  of 
Control — the  answer  can  be  given  in  a  very  few 
instances, — of  which  the  staffing  of  shops  and 
choice  of  foremen  by  the  Stuff  Pressers,  the  work 
of  the  labor-directors  at  Dawson's,  and  the  in- 
sistences by  a  few  Miners'  output  committees  on 
specific  improvements  in  management,  are  the 
most  conspicuous.  If  the  question  is  how  much 
contagious  control? — and  this  question  is  import- 
ant for  any  guesses  about  the  future — ^nearly  half 
the  cases  mentioned,  including  some  of  the  more 
striking  forms  of  positive  control  and  the  greater 
part  of  the  negative  control  covered  by  the  phrase 
"the  right  to  a  trade,"  must  be  ruled  out  as  hav- 
ing little  bearing  on  the  moving  tendencies  in  the 
great  industry. 


NOTE  ON  SOURCES 

The  following  is  a  brief  list  of  the  more  valuable 
sources  of  material  on  workers'  control — of  those,  that 
is,  that  can  be  obtained  outside  the  Labour  Research 
Department  or  Scotland  Yard. 

I.    BRITISH  GOVERNMENT  PUBLICATIONS. 

(H.  M.  Stationery  Office,  Imperial  Hoiise,  Kingsway,  London 

W.  C.  2.) 
Report  on  Collective  Agreements.    1910,  Cd.  5,366. 

The   most   comprehensive    cross-section   picture    of   the 
extent  and  variety  of  trade  union  agreements. 
Annual  Reports  on  Strikes  and  Lockouts.     1910,  Cd.  5,850. 
•1911,  Cd.  6,472.     1912,  Cd.  7,089.     1913,  Cd.  7,658. 

A  valuable  indication  of  the  magnitude  and,  less  ac- 
curately, the  causes  of  strikes.  The  sections  on  the  specific 
issues  of  strikes  are  especially  suggestive.  The  classifica- 
tion of  causes  is,  however,  inconvenient  for  the  purposes 
of  the  student  of  control. 
Report  of  the  Commissioners  on  Industrial  Unrest.  1917. 
The  section  on  South  Wales  discusses  the  demand  for 
control. 

Works  Committees.  Ministry  of  Labour.  Industrial  Report 
No.  2.  (Reprinted  in  America  by  the  Bureau  of  Industrial 
Research,  New  York.) 

The  most  useful  single  official  document  on  workers' 
control.  Ably  written  and  packed' with  invaluable  factual 
material.  Further  material  is  being  collected  for  a  second 
edition. 

The  Whitley  Report.  Ministry  of  Labour.  Industrial  Re- 
port No.  1. 

Industrial  Councils.  Ministry  of  Labour.  Industrial  Report 
No.  4. 

Sample  provisions  from  the  constitutions  of  Whitley 
Councils. 

Recommendations  of  the  Provisional  Joint  Committee  of  the 
Industrial  Conference.     1919,  Cmd.  139. 

A  somewhat  startling  indication  of  the  things  on  which 
British  employers  and  workers  agree. 

267 


268  NOTES 

Coal  Industry  Commission.     Interim  Reports.      1919,  Cmd. 
84,  85,  86. 

Coal  Industry  Commission.    Reports  of  Second  Stage.    1919, 
Cmd.  210. 

The  famous  "  Sankey  Report "  recommending  nation- 
alization of  the  mines  with  a  considerable  measure  of 
workers'  control. 

Coal  Industry  Commission.    Minutes  of  Evidence.    Cmd.  359, 
360. 

The  record  of  a  great  public  clinic  in  the  economics  and 
psychology  of  modern  industry.  Control  is  a  leading 
theme  throughout.  A  great  mine  of  valuable  material  on 
this  and  other  subjects  that  has  not  yet  been  worked  over 
by  students. 


II.    SOURCE   MATERIALS   ON  WORKERS'   CONTROL. 
A.  The  Peopaganda  of  "  Complete  Contbol.  " 

The  Miners'  Next  Step.  Unofficial  Reform  Committee. 
Tonypandy,  South  Wales.     1912. 

Industrial  Democracy  for  Miners.  A  Plan  for  the  Demo- 
cratic Control  of  the  Mining  Industry.  The  Industrial 
Committee  of  the  South  Wales  Socialist  Society, 
Forth,  Rhondda  Valley,  South  Wales,  1919. 

The  contrast  between  these  two  pamphlets,  the  work 
of  the  same  group  of  rank-and-file  extremists,  is  a 
striking  indication  of  the  increasing  hopefulness  with 
which  the  claim  for  control  is  urged.  The  Miners' 
Next  Step  is  bitter  and  purely  destructive,  advocating 
the  irritation  strike,  and  is  still  publicly  referred  to 
with  bated  breath  as  the  type  of  all  that  is  criminal  in 
syndicalism.  Its  sequel  is  hopeful  and  entirely  con- 
cerned with  constructive,  though  equally  "  impossi- 
bilist,"  plans  of  organizing  control. 

J.  T.  Murphy.  The  Workers'  Committee.  Sheffield 
Workers'  Committee,  56  Rushdale  Road,  Meersbrook, 
Sheffield.     1918. 

By  the  chief  spokesman  for  the  Shop  Stewards  Move- 
ment.   Claimed  a  sale  of  30,000  copies  up  to  May,  1919. 

J.  T.  Murphy.  Compromise  or  Independence?  An  Ex- 
animation  of  the  Whitley  Report.  Sheffield  Workers' 
Committee. 

W.  Gallecher  and  J.  Paton.  Towards  Industrial  De- 
mocrccj/;  A  Mem,ora/ndum  on  Workshop  Control. 
Trades  and  Labour  Coimcil,  Paisley,  Scotland.    1917. 

A  scheme  of  "  collective  contract "  devised  by  two  of 
the  Clyde  shop  stewards.  Taken  up  in  the  propaganda 
of  the  National  Guild  League. 


NOTES  269 

B.  The  Miners'  Case  fob  Contbol. 

R.  Page  Arnot.  Facts  from  the  Coal  Commission  and 
Further  Facts  from  the  Coal  Commission.  Miners' 
Federation,  Russell  Square,  London.     1919. 

A  skillful  abridgement  of  the  most  telling  evidence 
for  the  Miners'  case.  The  second  pamphlet  contains  the 
text  of  the  Miners'  Bill  for  Nationalization. 

Frank  Hodges.  The  Nationalisation  of  the  Mines.  Par- 
sons.   London.     1920. 

By  the  Secretary  of  the  Miners'  Federation,  who  of 
all  prominent  labor  leaders  has  most  consistently 
thought  of  himself  as  a  student  of  the  control  problem. 

C.  "  Joint  Control  "  in  the  Building  Trades. 
Organized  Public  Service  in  the  Building  Industry.    The 

Industrial  Council  for  the  Building  Industry.  48  Bed- 
ford Square,  London.     1919. 

The  far-reaching  "  Foster  Report "  presented  by  a 
sub-committee  of  the  Buildijig  Trades  Parliament. 
Thos.  Foster.     Masters  cmd  Men.    Headley.    London. 

Mr.  Foster  is  a  prominent  building  trades  employer, 
a  Guild  Socialist,  and  chairmtui  of  the  committee  that 
drafted  the  "  Foster  Report." 
History    of   the   Building    Trades   Parliament.      Garton 
Foundation.     London.     1919. 

First-hand.     Somewhat  sentimental. 

D.  Employers'  Experiments  with  Control. 

C.  G.  Renold.  Workshop  Committees.  Suggested  Lines 
of  Development.  Hans  Renold,  Ltd.,  Manchester.  1917. 
(Reprinted  in  America  by  the  Survey.) 

Mr.  Renold  is  a  Cornell  graduate  and  the  managing 
director  of  a  highly  successful  and  somewhat  "Ameri- 
canized "  chain  factory  outside  of  Manchester. 

Democratic  Control  the  Key  to  Industrial  Progress.  John 
Dawson,  Ltd.,  Newcastle-on-Tyne.     1919. 

An  account  of  the  boldest  attempt  on  the  part  of  an 
employer  (Mr.  G.  H.  Humphreys)  to  give  control  to 
the  workers.  The  firm  flourished  during  the  war  but 
failed  to  survive  the  peace. 

E.  An  Engineer's  Counterblast  Against  Control,    Alex. 

Richardson.  The  Man-Power  of  the  Nation.  Reprinted 
from  Engineering,  35  Bedford  St.,  Strand,  London. 
1916. 

III.    BOOKS   ON  BRITISH  TRADE  UNIONISM. 

Sidney   and   Beatrice  Webb.     History   of  Trade   Unionism, 
Longmans,  Green.    London,  New  York.     1894. 


270  NOTES 

Sidney  and  Beatrice  Webb.     Industrial  Democracy.     Long- 
mans, Green.     London,  New  York.     1897. 

The  two  great  classics  of  trade  unionism.  I  have  drawn 
heavily  on  their  material  throughout,  perhaps  most  ob- 
viously in  the  earlier  part  of  Section  IV  and  in  Section  V. 
It  is  interesting  to  note,  however,  that  their  material  is 
arranged  without  specific  reference  to  the  control  problem. 
The  Doctrine  of  Workers'  Control  had  not  yet  been  in- 
vented. 
/  Sidney  Webb.  The  Restoration  of  Trade  Union  Conditions. 
Huebsch.     1917. 

Sidney  and  Beatrice  Webb.    The  History  of  Trade  Unionism. 
Longmans,  Green.     London,  New  York.     1920. 
A  new  edition,  revised  and  brought  up  to  date. 

G.  D.  H.  Cole.     An  Introdtwtion  to  Trade  Unionism.     Bell. 
London.     1918. 

The  best  brief  statement  of  current  trade  union  prob- 
lems. Valuable  statistical  appendices  on  trade  union 
membership. 

G.  D.  H.  Cole.    Labour  in  War  Time.    Bell.    London.     1915. 

G.  D.  H.  Cole  and  R.  Page  Arnot.     Trade  Unionism  on  the 
Railways.    Allen  and  IJnwin.     London.     1917. 

G.  D.  H.  Cole.     The  World  of  Labour.    Bell.    London.     1915. 
American  students  should  not  judge  this  by  its  chapter 
on  American  Labor,  which  is  not  a  fair  sample. 

G.  D.  H.  Cole.    Self-Government  in  Industry.    Bell.    London. 
1917. 

G.  D.  H.  Cole.     Labour  in  the  Commonwealth.     Headley. 
London.     1919. 

Mr.  Cole's  work  is  almost  as  indispensable  to  the  study 
of  current  trade  unionism  as  is  that  of  the  Webbs  for  the 
earlier  period.  The  last  two  books  are  less  concerned  with 
trade  unionism  as  it  is  than  with  trade  unionism  as  a 
Guild  Socialist  would  like  to  make  it,  but  they  also  contain 
information  not  accessible  elsewhere.  All  the  books  are 
written  with  the  control  problem  in  the  very  forefront. 

Labour  Year  Book,  1916.    Labour  Party,  33  Eccleston  Square, 
London. 

Labour  Year  Book,  1910.    Labour  Party,  London. 

Useful  catalogues  of  and  by  the  labor  movement. 

The  Industrial  Situation  After  the  War.    Garton  Foundation. 
London.     1918,  1919. 

IV.    BOOKS   ON   SPECIAL  PROBLEMS. 
A.  Unemployment. 

W.   H.   Beveridge.      Unemployment:   A   Problem   of   In- 
dustry.    Longmans.     London.     1910. 


NOTES  271 

R.  Williams.    The  First  Year's  Working  of  the  Liverpool 
Docks  Scheme.    London.     1914. 

B.  Methods  of  Payment. 

D.    F.    Schloss.      Methods   of   Industrial   Remuneration. 
Williams  and  Newgate.    London.     1892,  1894,  1898. 

G.    D.   H.   Cole.      The  Payment   of   Wages.     Allen   and 
Unwin.     London.     1918. 

V.    AMERICAN  BOOKS  ON  BRITISH  LABOR. 

Paul  U.  Kellogg  and  Arthur  Gleason.    British  Labor  and 
the  War.    Boni  and  Liveright.    New  York.  1919. 

Arthur  Gleason.     What  the  Workers  Want.     Harcourt, 
Brace  and  Howe.     New  York.     1920. 

Mr.  Gleason  is  by  far  the  best  informed  American 
journalist  on  British  Labor.  The  earlier  book  is  mainly 
concerned  with  political  questions,  but  Part  VI  and  a 
number  of  the  appendices  are  useful  in  the  present  con- 
nection. The  latter  book  makes  industry  its  main  busi- 
ness and  contains  very  valuable  material.  The  first- 
hand description  of  the  human  side  of  the  Coal  Com- 
mission, and  the  statements  secured  from  the  leaders 
of  the  Miners  and  the  Shop  Stewards,  are  especially 
useful. 


INDEX 


"Abnormal  places,"  167 
Absentee  Committees,  149 
Absenteeism,  209 
Agreement,     Bradford     Dyers' 
Association,     68,     80,     118; 
Brooklands,     166;     Engineer- 
ing   Trades,    57;    Leek    Silk 
Weavers',  187;  Linotype  Op- 
erators',      188;        Liverpool 
Dockers',    58;    Oldham,    224- 
225;    Pottery,    58;     Scottish 
Bookbinders',     188,     Sliding 
Scale,    243;    Steel    Dressers', 
61;  "Treasury,"  171,  194-197 
Agreements,  collective,  56-58 
Allocation  of  Work,  58,  61,  155- 

156,  190 
Amalgamated    Society    of    En- 
gineers, 21,  98-99, 
"  Amicable  discipline,"  35 
Apprentices,  limitation  of,  58 
Apprenticeship,  21,  92-98,  181; 
Britannia      Metal       Smiths, 
rules  of,  95 
Authority,  of  Employers,  56-57 ; 
opposition  to,  30-31 

Barnes,  George,  99 

Barr  and  Stroud's,  218 

Bell,  Robert,  59 

Beveridge,  W.  H.,  83 

Bevin,  Ernest,  84 

Birmingham  Alliances,  241-242 

Birmingham  brass  trades'  grad- 
ing system,  165 

Bowley,  Professor,  75-76,  86 

Bradford  Dyers'  Association 
Agreement,  1914,  68,  80,  118; 
payment  system  of,  172-173 

Bradshaw,  Secretary,  on  build- 
ing-trades labor  supply,  101 

"  Brains  Committee,"  219 


Bramwell,  Hugh,  testimony  of, 

106,  212-214 
British  Westinghouse  Co.,  220 
Brooklands  Agreement,  166 
Building     Trades     Parliament, 

8ee    under    Joint    Industrial 

Council 

Ca'canny  policy,  172,  178 

Cadbury's,  218,  219 

Cannan,  Edwin,  testimony  of, 
28-29 

Cecil,  Lord  Robert,  quoted,  28 

Central  Labor  College,  5 

Clay,  Henry,  27,  259 

Cleveland  Rules,  the,  148-149 

Clyde  Dilution  Scheme,  10,  197- 
201 

Clyde  Shop  Steward's  case,  32 

Clyde  Workers'  Committee,  8, 
259 

Coal  Commission,  1,  46,  51,  cund 
see  under  Miners 

Coal  Miners,  see  under  Miners 

Cole,  G.  D.  H.,  6,  161-162,  164, 
168,  236 

Collective  Agreements,  56-58 

Collective  bargaining,  53,  62, 
165,   166,  168 

Collective  Contract  payment, 
173 

Compulsory  Unionism,  128 

Conciliation  Boards,  14,  224- 
226 

Control,  "  agreeable,"  253 ;  a 
political  word,  36-38;  "con- 
tagious," 266 ;  "  complete  ex- 
ecutive," 51-52;  demand  for, 
3-50;  degree  of^  54-55;  Derby- 
shire Miners  and,  44;  extent 
of,  253-266;  favored  by 
Trade     Unionists,     17,     18; 


273 


274 


INDEX 


Frontier  of,  56-71;  Guild  So- 
cialists and,  5-6;  independ- 
ent, 257,  266;  irksomeness  of 
present  system  of,  35;  Marx- 
ian Industrial  Unionists  and, 
5;  Miners'  Federation  and, 
12;  National  Union  of  Rail- 
Avaymen  and,  13-14;  negative, 
202,  217,  257;  Old  Craft, 
264-265;  over  choice  of  fore- 
men, 120 ;  political  factors  of, 
38;  positive,  257,  264,  266; 
resentment  against,  30-35 ; 
striking  instances  of,  260-261 ; 
State,  233;  technical  factors 
of,  39;  wage  element  dom- 
inant factor  in,  21;  workers', 
4  et  seq.,  56. 
Co-operative  work,  173-175 
Cotton  Control  Board,  237-239, 
248;  policy  concerning  im- 
employment,  80-81 
Craftsmanship,  39-42 

Dawson's,  John,  231-233,  258 

De-casualization  Policy,  83 

Defence  of  the  Realm  Act,  237 

Demand  for  control,  1-50;  or- 
ganized demand,  4-18;  by 
propagandist  bodies,  5-7 ; 
shop  stewards,  7-11;  trade 
unions,  11-18;  unorganized 
demand,   18-50 

Demarcation  issue,  99-100,  181 

Denny's,  Wm.,  218 

Dilution,  100-03,  181-182,  189; 
Clyde  scheme  of,  10,  197-201 

Direct  Representation  from 
Workshops,  9 

Discipline  and  management,  61- 
62 

Duckham,  Sir  Arthur,  250 

Education  in  control,  248 
Employers,    authority    of,    56, 

60;    limitation    on,    63,    77; 

policy    relative    to    foremen, 

129-132 
Employment,  63  et  seq.;  joint 

control   cf ,   68 ;    "  rationing," 

73;    regularizing,    82-85;    re- 


strictions on,  92  et  seq.; 
imion  membership  a  condi- 
tion of,  64-66 

Engineering  and  Shipbuilding 
Draughtsmen,  70 

Engineering  Trades  Agreement, 
1898,  57 

Factory  Act  regulations,  154 

Fines,  210 

Foremanship,  standard  of,  135- 
145 

Foremen,  choice  of,  117-125 
National  Industrial  Confer 
ence  report  on,  132-133 
organization  of,  126-134 
separate  unions  for,  130 
workers'  choice  of,  120-121, 
135 

Foremen's  Benefit  Society,  131, 
133 

"  Forty-hour  Movement,"  76 

Foster  Report,  6,  25,  86-91, 
229-230 

Foster,   Thomas,   86 

Gainford,  Lord,  155,  259-260 

Gallacher-Paton  memorandum, 
10,  70-71,  123,  174 

Garton  Foundation,  report  of, 
19 

Gaunt's,  Reuben,  108 

Glasgow  Trades  Union  Con- 
gress, 15-18 

Gleasdn,  Arthur,  41 

Guaranteed  Time,  78-79,  91 

Guild  Socialists,  5,  122 

Hamilton,  Lord  Claud,  59 
Hodges,  Frank,  12,  22,  23,  36, 

164,  206-207,  212-213,  259 
Humphrey,  G.  H.,  232 

Improvements,  insistence  on, 
202-216;  miners'  demand  for, 
204-215 

Industrial  Crista  cmd  the  Way 
Out,  239 

Industrial  Democracy,  91 

"Industrial  True*,"  7 

Industrial  Unionists,  and  con- 


INDEX 


275 


tagious  control,  264;  Marx- 
ian, 5;   shop  stewards,  9 

Industry,  workers'  control  of, 
15-18;  joint  control  of,  224- 
240 

Interests  in  industry,  worker's, 
19-50;  what  he  gets,  20-25; 
what  it's  for,  25-27 ;  how  he's 
treated,  27-38;  what  he  does, 
38-50 

Inventions,  218-219 

Irritation  strike,  179 

Joint  action,  see  under  Trade 
policy 

Joint  control  and  price  fixing, 
169-171 

Joint  discipline,  147-150 

Joint  Industrial  Council,  for 
the  Building  Industry,  88, 
113,  224,  227-228,  230;  for 
the  Silk  Industry,  227-228 

Juvenile  Employment  Commit- 
tee, 97 

Labor  Party,  157 

Labor  Unions,  attitude  toward 
innovations,  186-191;  see  also 
under  Trade  Unions  and  sep- 
arate titles 

Liverpool  Docks  Scheme,  First 
Year's  Working  of,  79 

Lloyd  George,  David,  60,  193 

London  Society  of  Compositors, 
67;  report  of,  97 

Machine  industry,  39;  produc- 
tion, 102 

Managerial  functions,  146-160; 
allocation  of  work,  155-156; 
measurement  of  results,  156- 
159;  safety  of  workers,  150, 
154;  wartime  regulations, 
147-149 

Mann,  Tom,  16,  76 

Man  Potcer  Of  the  Nation,  the, 
29-30 

Marxian  Industrial  Unionists, 
6 

Measurement  of  results,  quan- 
tity, 157;  quality,  158-159 

Mining  Association  of  Great 
Britain,  scheme  of,  250-251 


Miners'    Federation,    of    Great 

Britain,  1,  12-13,  42,  151-152, 

154,    163-164,    192,   208,   209, 

235,      244-245;       of      South 

Wales,    6,    152-156,    212-214, 

235-236 
"  Miners'    Four    Days  "   policy, 

254 
Miners'    Minimum    Wage    Act, 

137,  167 
Miners'   Next    Step,    105,    123, 

144,  183,  263 
Miners,  complaints  of,  205-206; 

improvements    demanded   by, 

204-215 
Miners'     Nationalization     Bill, 

12-13 
Ministry  of  Labor's  Report  on 

Works    Committees,    40,    85, 

108,  122,  140-141 
Muir,  John,  193 
Munitions  of  War  Act,  147-150 
Murphy,   J.   T.,    100,    102,   182, 

265 

National  Guilds  League,  6 

National  Industrial  Conference, 
132 

Nationalization  and  Joint  Con- 
trol, 26;  miners'  bill  for,  6, 
12,  13 

National  Union  of  Railway- 
men,  2-6,  4-5;  policy  of,  13- 
14,  42,  61,  78 

Northumberland  miners,  49,  50 

Officialism,  revolt  against,  8 
Oldham  agreement,  224-225 
Output  Committees,  149 
Output,     210;     restriction     of, 

177-185 
Overtime,     Union     restrictions 

against,  74-75 

Payment,  and  control,  164-165; 
collective,  163,  170-173;  by 
results,  165;  Bradford's 
Dyers'  Association's  system, 
172-173;  for  work  in  abnor- 
mal places.  167;  methods  of, 
161-176;    South    Wales   Col- 


276 


INDEX 


liery    Agreement    for,     167; 
Woolen     Trades'     plan     for, 
167 
Personal  freedom,  34 
Piece     work,     162-163,      205; 
Bradford      Dyers'      Associa- 
tion's   system    of,     172-173; 
Phoenix    Dynamo    Company's 
objections    to,     170;     Wood- 
working  Trades  opposed   to, 
162 
Phoenix  Dynamo  Co.,  170-171 
Pitfalls  of  the  Promoted,   the, 

29    30 
"  Policing,"  31,  137,  261 
"Politics  of  industry,"   176 
Poor  Law  Commission  Eeport, 

86 
Postal    and    Telegraph    Clerks, 

15,  112 
Post  Office  Workers,  46 
Power  Loom  Overlookers,  95 
Premium  bonus,  162-163 
Production,  regulation  of,  243- 

245 
Promotion,  111-116;  Federation 
of  Weavers'  rules  for,  114; 
Joint  Industrial  Council's 
rules  for,  112-113;  Seniority 
rule  for,  112;  the  workers' 
prerogative,  115 
Publicity  of  profits,  249-251 

"Rank  and  File  Movement,"  8 

Rate  fixing,  168-171 

Redmayne,  Sir  Richard,  testi- 
mony of,  205-206 

Renold's,  Hans,  120-121 

Restriction  and  restrictions, 
176-185 

Richardson,  Alexander,  131 

Rowntree's,  121 

"Sack,"   the   right  to,   102  et 

seq. 
Safety,    150-154;    strikes,    152- 

154 
Sankey,  Justice,  quoted,  46 
Sankey  Report,  13,  222 
Schloss,  D.  F.,  36,  110,  125,  161- 

162,  218 


Scottish  Master  Tailors'  state- 
ment, 73-74 

Sharing  of  work,  73-74 

Sheffield  Workers*  Committee,  9 

Shop  Committees  and  their  du- 
ties, 200-201 

Shop  Stewards'  Manual,  8-9, 
140;   movement,  7,  9-11,  255 

Short  time,  73-77 

Sliding  Scale,  243 

Smillie,  Robert,  154,  206,  215 

Smith,  Herbert,  24,  206 

Socialism,  fcitate,  25-27 

Socialist  Labor  Party,  5 

Sparkes,  Malcolm,  227,  256 

Specialization,  182,  183 

Stay-in  strike,  178-179 

Steel  Dressers'  Agreement,  61 

Stockholm  International  Labor 
Conference,  25 

Straker,  William,  quoted,  3,  22, 
27,  38,  221 ;  testimony  before 
Coal  Commission,  33,  47 

Strikes,  against  objectionable 
promotions,  114;  against  ob- 
jectionable supervision,  135- 
137;  against  use  of  machin- 
ery, 184;  because  of  a  woman 
shop  steward,  184;  for  rein- 
statement of  operatives,  106- 
107,  109;  for  safety,  152; 
Glasgow  Dockers',  128;  Iron 
Founders',  204 

Stuff  Pressers'  Society,  69,  94, 
117,  172,  263,  265 

"  Suggestion  Boxes,"  218 

Suggestions,  right  to  make,  43- 
46 

Syndicalism,  4 

Tawney,  R.  H.,  135,  258 

Technique,  consultation  over 
changes,  186-201 ;  insistence 
on  improvements,  202-216; 
restriction  and  restrictions, 
176-185;  suggestions  and  in- 
ventions, 217-222 

Thomas,  J.  H.,  60 

Thompson,  William,  72 

Trade  Policy,  joint  action  re- 
garding,   223-240;    Joint   In- 


INDEX 


277 


dustrial  Councils,  226-227 ; 
Oldham  Agreement,  224-225; 
publicity  of  profits,  249-251 ; 
scheme  of  Postal  Telegraph 
Clerks'  Association,  223-240; 
workers'  demands,  241-252 

Trade,  the  right  to  a,  92-103 

Trades  Union  Congress,  Glas- 
gow, 1919,  15-16,  18 

Trade  Union  movement,  36 

Trade  Unions,  and  overtime,  14- 
75;  and  short  time,  75-77;  as 
employment  agencies,  66;  at- 
titude toward  promotions, 
111;  guaranteed  time,  78-79; 

•  membership  of,  92-93;  policy 
regarding  foremen,  126-129, 
142 

Treasury  Agreement,  the,  171, 
194-197 

"Tuppenny  Strike,"  8 

Turner,  Ben,  47-48 

Unemployment,    72    et   seq.;   a 
charge  on  the  industry,   86 
a  matter  of  trade  policy,  223 
fear  of  restricts  output,  87 
prevention  of,  86-91;  schemes 
for  lessening,  80-86;  security 
against,  23 
Unionized  industry,  64-66 
Unions  as  employment  agencies, 
66-70 

Victimization,  104,  107-108 

Wages,  20;   and  hours,   20-23, 


53;  collective  contract,  173- 
174;  collective  payment,  171- 
173;  methods  of  payment, 
161  et  acq.;  piece  work,  162- 
173 

"  Wage  Slavery,"  38 

Weavers'  Manifesto,  242 

Webb,  Sidney  and  Beatrice,  36, 
86,  91,  93,   112,   157,  203 

Wedgwood's,  43 

Whitehead  Torpedo  Works,  147 

Whitley  Councils,  5-6,  154,  226, 
240;  report  of,  113-114,  192, 
221,  248 

Williams,  R.,  79 

Woods,  Frank,  97-98 

Wool  Control  Board,  237,  249 

Women  labor,  102 

Work,  equalization  of,  73-74 

Workers,  grievances  of,  140- 
142;  interests  in  industry, 
19-20,  38;  methods  of  pay- 
ment of,  161  et  seq.;  objec- 
tion to  being  watched,  137- 
138;  resentment  of,  29-35; 
safety  of,  150-154;  sensitive- 
ness of,  32;  servility  of,  33; 
treatment  of,  27-29 

Workers'  Control,  see  under 
Control 

Working  Shedulcs,  156 

Workmanship,  46-49;  collective, 
43 

Works'  Council,  231-233 

Yorkshire  Glass  Bottle  Work- 
ers, 74 


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